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THE 



VALLEY OF WYOMING: 



THE ROMANCE 



OF ITS 



HISTORY AND ITS POETRY. 



ALSO, 



SPECIMENS OF INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 



COMPILED BY A 

NATIVE OF THE VALLEY. 

uCw»4 H. M «r\er 



1 ) 




NEW YORK: 
ROBT. H. JOHNSTON & CO.: 

AND SOLD BY 

C. E. BUTLER, WILKES-BARRE, PA. 

iS66. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1866, by 
ROBERT H. JOHNSTON & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



• » ■> 

c c 



-1 



/- /(^SS"^ ^cjclf-f?^^^^ 



CONTENTS. 



2 '' •^ 



PAGE 

Prefatory Notice ......»« 5 

Introductory ......... 7 

The Valley Described ....... 9 

Indian Remains and early Occupation of the Valley by 

THE Indians ........ 17 

Early Attempts at Settlements of Wyoming by the Whites 29 

Story of the Great Massacre ...... 37 

Story of Frances Slocum ...... 4^ 

Poetry of Wyoming ........ 58 

Gertrude of Wyoming . . , . i » . 67 

Wyoming by Halleck . . . . . . .111 

Local Poetry . . . . . . . . I16 

Indian Eloquence . . . . • . . .126 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The Summer tourist, or the traveller from foreign lands, 
often finds himself embarrassed by the great variety and exqui- 
site beauty of American scenery. In such a moment of doubt, 
let him decide in favor of that matchless valley declared by 
Colonel Stone to be superior in its real charms even to Dr. 
Johnson's ideal of the Happy Valley of Amhara, which he 
describes as the perfection of an earthly abode. 

The decision being made, the traveller has looked in vain 
for a little hand-book to serve as an intelligent guide to the 
natural curiosities and beauties, bloody fields and antiquities, of 
Wyoming. He could, hardly find a separate copy of Camp- 
bell's imaginative and exquisite poem. He was fain either to 
supply himself with the voluminous and exhaustive pages of 
Miner, and similar works, or he must trust himself to the dis- 
jointed and sometimes rhapsodized legends of the cicerones 
of the valley. 

This little volume, which has not the slightest claim to be 
either a history or a study of romance, is presented as just such 
a hand-book as the tourist will need. The visitor to Wyoming 
will find it a guide to his feet, and the visitors of former years 
may in its pages renew the charming itinerary at their own 
firesides. 

In the extracts here presented may be found the true 
romance of the history of Wyoming, most romantic because 
simply true. 

The brief compilation given will serve to interest the visitor. 



6 PREFJTORT NOTE. 

and the slight sketch of men and events will need no very 
vivid imagination to reproduce for him the figures of the 
early colonists, to conjure up the desperate conflicts, the Indian 
war-whoop, the shrieking women and children, the smoking 
desolation. 

The great poem of Campbell has been appended ; for al- 
though it is not entirely true to external nature, it is most deli- 
cately true to human nature, and appeals directly to the human 
heart. It, more than veritable history, has made known the 
sad story of Wyoming wherever the English language is read ; 
and it will perpetuate that story where histories are unknown, 
and when histories shall be forgotten. ** Oh, happy privilege 
of genius," says Leigh Hunt, in speaking of Priam before 
Achilles, " that can reach out its hand from a thousand years 
back, and touch our eyelids with tears !" 

It is worthy to be remembered in passing, that the beauty 
of " Susquehanna's side," as depicted by Campbell, gave to 
the great Lakers their idea of selecting it as a spot upon which 
to try their wild scheme of Pantisocracy at the beginning of this 
century, a scheme abandoned while in embryo. 

Nor is this the only poetic garland hung among the wild 
flowers on her ruined wall. Our own Halleck, dreaming in 
the happy valley, one day wakened into sudden song, de- 
claring, as he gazed : — 

" Nature hath made thee lovelier than the power 
Everj of Campbell's pen hath pictured." 

A few other poems, chiefly of local and antiquarian value, 
have been added for the tourist's behoof, and he may thus move 
among the Wyoming people to the songs of their own making. 

New York, i8G6. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Wyoming ! who has not heard the name of the 
beautiful valley through which the Susquehanna glides, 
" fair Wyoming," with her mountain walks, her story- 
telling glens, her founts and brooks, and maids as dew- 
drops pure and fair, which the soul with grandeur fill, 
and melody and love ? 

Who has not heard, too, her sad story ? It has been 
elaborated by the pen of the historian, and immortalized 
in the lofty rhyme of the poet. Wyoming ! thine, in- 
deed, was the fatal gift of beauty, that dowry which is 
so often fraught with woe to its inheritor. For its 
possession and enjoyment contending tribes of the red 
men fought ; and when wrenched from their grasp by 
force, or fraud, or treachery, and white men, bearing 
the casket of a better civilization, had come within her 
borders, and she had received the baptism of blood as 
a seal, even then followed contentions, and tumults, 
and bloody wars between factions of the pale faces : the 
issue was to decide which should have her to hold and to 



8 JFTOMING. 

enjoy. It is not to be wondered at that the poor Indian, 
untaught, selfish by intuition, and beHeving in the law 
of might, should have fought long and well to retain 
the possession of that which to him was a terrestrial 
paradise. 

There were no nobler hunting-grounds, nor a more 
beautiful wigwam-home. Nature was lavish of supply, 
and prodigal of health and happiness. , 

Here was the mountain, the plain, and the river, 
each of its kind the noblest ; the mountain for hunting, 
the river for fishing, and the plain for planting. But 
why, after its possession by the white man had been 
secured, brothers with brothers should contend, it is 
not designed in this compilation fully to explain. A 
few brief facts we shall give, and let our readers gather 
the philosophy for themselves.* It is the old paradox 
of pundit and poet : — 

** Strange — that where nature loved to trace, 
As if for gods a dwelling-place, 
And every charm and grace had mixed 
Within the paradise she fixed, 
There man, enamored of distress. 
Should mar it into wilderness." 



* For the materials from whence this brief compilation is derived, we 
are mainly indebted to Miner's, Chapman's, and Stone's Histories of 
Wyoming. 



irrOMING. 



THE VALLEY DESCRIBED. 



THE NAME. 



The name of Wyoming was long supposed to mean 
" a field of blood ;" but it has been more correctly 
found to mean " the large plains." It is derived from 
Maughwauwama^ in the dialect of the Delaware In- 
dians, maughwau meaning large^ and zvaina signifying 
plains. Every one will admit that the word has lost 
nothing under the civilizing process of contraction to 
which it has been subjected. The name was originally 
used to designate a much larger extent of country than 
is embraced within the limits of the valley, and by 
which it is now appropriated. We shall not, however, 
introduce any thing in this volume beyond the limits of 
the valley as it is now known and designated. 



THE LOCALITY. 



Wyoming is the name given to a beautiful valley, 
situated along the river Susquehanna, in the north- 



10 irroMiNG. 

eastern part of the State of Pennsylvania. It is about 
three miles wide and twenty-five miles long, and is 
formed by two ranges of mountains nearly parallel to 
each other, extending from the northeast to the south- 
west. 

THE MOUNTAINS. 

These mountains contain many rocky precipices, 
and are covered with trees, consisting principally of 
oak and pine. 

The average height of the eastern range is about one 
thousand feet ; that of the western about eight hun- 
dred. They are of very irregular form, having ele- 
vated points, and deep hollows or openings, which are 
called " gaps." 

THE RIVER. 

The Susquehanna enters the valley through a gap 
In the western mountain, called the "Lackawannock 
Gap," and, flowing in a serpentine course about twenty 
miles, leaves the valley through another opening in the 
same mountain, called the " Nanticoke Gap." These 
openings are so wide only as to admit of the passage of 
the river, and are In part faced with perpendicular bluffs 
of rocks, covered with a thick growth of pine and 
laurel, which have a very fine appearance when viewed 
from the river, or from the road which passes along 



irroMiNG. II 

their bases. The river is in most places about two 
hundred yards wide, from four to twenty feet deep, 
and flows with a very gentle current, except at the 
rapids, or when swelled with rains or melting snows. 

THE FALLS. 

Near the center of the valley is a rapid called the 
Wyoming Falls, and another called the " Nanticoke 
Falls," where the river passes through the Nanticoke 
Gap. Several tributary streams fall into the river, 
and, after passing through rocky gaps in the mountains 
on each side of the valley, form beautiful cascades as 
they descend into the plain. Those on the northwest 
side are Toby's Creek, Moses' Creek, and Island Run. 
On the southeast side are Mill Creek, Laurel Run, 
Solomon's Creek, and Nanticoke Creek, all of which 
are sufficient for mills and abound with fish. 

THE RIVER PLAINS. 

Along the river, and on both sides, are level fertile 
plains, extending in some places nearly a mile and a 
half from the margin of the river, where small hills 
commence stretching to the mountains ; the rivers 
sometimes washing the base of the hills on one side, 
and sometimes on the other. The surface of the plain 
in some parts of the valley is elevated about ten feet 



12 IVrOMING. 

higher than in other parts, forming a sudden offset or 
declivity from one to the other. These plains are 
called the upper and lower " Flats," and spontaneously 
produce quantities of plums, grapes, many kinds of 
berries, and a great variety of wild flowers. 

COAL. 

Throughout the valley and in the sides of the moun- 
tains mineral coal, of a very superior quality, is found 
in great abundance ; it is of the species called anthra- 
cite, which burns without smoke, and with very little 
flame, and constitutes the principal fuel of the inhabit- 
ants, as well as their most important article of exporta- 
tion. 

ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS. 

In the valley of Wyoming there exist some remains 
of ancient fortifications, which appear to have been 
constructed by a race of people very different in their 
habits from those who occupied the region when first 
discovered by the whites. Most of these ruins have 
been so much obliterated by the operations of agricul- 
ture, and inroads which successive floods have made 
upon them, perhaps for centuries, that their forms can- 
not now be distinctly traced out. That which remains 
the most entire was examined during the summer of 
1817, and its dimensions carefully ascertained, although 



WYOMING. 13 

from frequent plowing its form had become almost 
destroyed. It is situated in the township of Kingston, 
upon a level plain on the north side of Toby's Creek, 
about one hundred and fifty feet from its bank, and 
near its confluence with the Susquehanna. It is of an 
oval or elliptical form, having its largest diameter from 
the northwest to the southeast, at right angles to the 
creek, three hundred and thirty-seven feet, and its 
shortest diameter from the northeast to the southwest, 
two hundred and seventy-two feet. On the southwest 
side appears to have been a gateway about twelve feet 
wide, opening toward the great eddy of the river into 
which the creek falls. From present appearances, it 
consisted probably of only one mound or rampart, 
which, in height and thickness, appears to have been 
the same on all sides, and was constructed of earth, 
the plain on which it stands not abounding in stone. 
On the outside of the rampart is an intrenchment or 
ditch, formed probably by removing the earth of which 
it is composed, and which appears never to have been 
walled. The creek on which it stands is bounded by 
a high steep bank on that side, and at ordinary times 
is sufficiently deep to admit canoes to ascend from 
the river to the fortification. 

When the first settlers came to Wyoming, this plain 
was covered with its native forest, consisting principally 
of oak and yellow pine ; and the trees which grew in 



14 IFTOMING. 

the rampart and in the intrenchment are said to have 
been as large as those in any other part of the valley ; 
one large oak particularly, upon being cut down, w^as 
ascertained to be seven hundred years old. The In- 
dians had no tradition concerning these fortifications, 
neither did they appear to have any knowledge of the 
purposes for which they had been constructed. They 
were, perhaps, erected about the same time with those 
upon the waters of the Ohio, and probably by a similar 
people and for similar purposes. 

Another fortification similar to this existed on Jacob's 
Plains, on the upper flats in Wilkes-Barre ; but almost 
every evidence of such structure is now obliterated. 
The pains-taking and careful explorer of such remains 
may see, or may think he sees, and cry Eureka ! but 
when the spot is reached, imagination must complete 
the picture. 

That the valley was once inhabited by a race superior 
to that which the pale faces found when they first 
came there, may safely be concluded. But '' what, 
from whence, and who their sires," and what became 
of them, it were vain to conjecture : " a heap of dust 
alone remains," which is occasionally unearthed to show 
that once " there lived a man." 



U'TOMING. 15 



MR. miner's description. 

Mr. Miner, In his exhaustive History of Wyoming, 
says : — " The valley Is diversified by hill and dale, up- 
land and Intervale. Its character of extreme richness 
is derived from the extensive flats, or river-bottoms, 
w^hlch in some places extend from one to two miles 
back from the river, unrivaled in expansive beauty, 
unsurpassed in luxuriant fertility. Though now gen- 
erally cleared and cultivated, to protect the soil from 
floods, a fringe of trees is left along each bank of the 
river — the sycamore, the elm, and more especially the 
black walnut — while here and there, scattered through 
the fields, a large shell-bark yields a summer shade to 
the weary laborer, and Its autumn fruits to the black 
and gray squirrel or the rival plow-boy. Pure streams 
of water come leaping from the mountains, imparting 
health and pleasure in their course, all of them abound- 
ing with the delicious trout. Along these brooks, and 
in the vales scattered through the uplands, grow the 
wild plum and the butternut, while, wherever the hand 
of man has spared it, the native grape may be gathered 
in unlimited profusion. I have seen a grape-vine bend- 
ing beneath its purple clusters, one branch climbing a 
butternut, loaded with fruit \ another branch resting on 
a wild plum, red with its delicious burden ; the while, 



i6 JVrOMING. 

growing in their shade, the hazelnut was ripening its 
rounded kernel. 

" Such," he adds, " were common scenes when the 
white people first came to Wyoming (which seems to 
have been formed by nature a perfect Indian paradise). 
Game of every sort was abundant. The quail whistled 
in the meadow; the pheasant rustled in its leafy covert; 
the wild duck reared her brood, and bent the reed in 
every inlet ; the red deer fed upon hills, while in the 
deep forests, within a few hours' walk, was found the 
stately elk. Several persons now living delight to relate 
their hunting prowess in bringing down this noblest of 
our first inhabitants. The rivers yielded at all seasons 
a supply of fish, — the yellow perch, the pike, the cat- 
fish, the bass, the roach, and, in the spring season, 
myriads of shad." 



CHANGES. 

The only changes that have been wrought out in 
the aspects and appearance of the valley are such as the 
wit and industry of man have projected and accom- 
plished in the so-called improvements of the age. Im- 
provements unquestionably have been made, and great 
ones too ; but why, in carrying them out, it should be 
necessary to mar (and it would seem to have been 
done almost wantonly in many instances) the face of 



WYOMING. i-j 

nature, by stripping the hill and mountain-side of the 
growth and groves of trees, where. In former days, was 

" many a shade that love might share, 



And many a grotto meant for rest," 

but where now Is to be seen only a barren, neglected 
surface — 

" doth give us pause." 

It Is only within a few years that this species of 
vandalism was undertaken, and pretty nearly accom- 
plished with what yet remained of a former luxuriant 
growth of beech, maple, walnut, and elm trees, that 
adorned the western banks of the river below the bridge. 
But the crime met the recompense of reward ; for the 
floods came shortly after and utterly obliterated broad 
acres, washing away an extent which would probably 
have remained Intact, yielding Its Increase for years to 
come, as during ages past It had done, had the trees 
been allowed to remain to protect it from the relentless 
floods. 



THE INDIAN REMAINS. 

The whites, upon their discovery and first explora- 
tion of the valley, found it occupied by two tribes of 



l8 H^rOMING. 

Indians — the Shawanese, on the western bank of the 
Susquehanna, and the Delawares, on the eastern. The 
main village of the Delawares was at the bend of the 
river, just below the town of Wilkes-Barre, and nearly- 
opposite to the first island. The villages of the Shaw- 
anese were upon the opposite bank — one not far from 
the lower end of Ross Hill, and another, the main one, 
on the Shawanese Flats below. 

Upon the site of these, from time to time, either by 
the washing away of the banks, or in carrying out some 
improvement^ numerous discoveries of Indian graves 
have been made, and the usual relics which they were 
accustomed to bury with their dead have been brought 
to light ; but these, instead of being carefully kept 
together and preserved, have been widely scattered, 
and are now, many of them, hopelessly lost. To show 
how little value is attached to these remains, I was 
told of a perfect specimen of Indian pottery, which only 
the winter before had been broken by some boys who 
were playing at football with it. 

Besides these Indian villages there must have been 
others, and the " River Bank " at Wilkes-Barre is likely 
to have been one ; for here Indian graves have been 
frequently discovered, exposed to view either by the 
washing away of the bank or by leveling it, with a 
view to improve the same ; and now that a horse rail- 
road is projected, perhaps, in carrying out the plan, more 



IVrOMING. 



19 



may be discovered. At the bend of the river, about a 
mile above Mill Creek, are unmistakable evidences that 
a village formally existed ; for, to this day, numerous 
pieces of their broken pottery, flint arrow-heads, and 
other rude relics are to be found there. 



THE SHAWANESE. 

The Shawanese, whose villages were on the western 
bank, came into the valley from their former localities, 
at the " forks of the Delaware" (the junction of the 
Delaware and Lehigh, at Easton), to which point they 
had befen induced at some remote period to emigrate 
from their earlier home, near the mouth of the river 
Wabash, in the " Ohio region," upon the invitation 
of the Delawares. This was Indian diplomacy, for 
the Delawares were desirous (not being upon the most 
friendly terms with the Mingos, or Six Nations) to 
accumulate a force against those powerful neighbors. 
But, as might be expected, they did not long live in 
peace with their new allies : disturbances soon rose 
between the Shawanese and that portion of the tribe of 
the Delawares who occupied the country lower down 
the river. These at length resulted in conflicts so vio- 
lent, that the Shawanese were compelled to leave the 
forks of the Delaware, and the whole tribe removed to 
Wyoming Valley, which they found unoccupied ; here, 



20 WYOMING. 

with no enemy to annoy them, they built their town, 
upon the west bend of the river, near the lower end of 
the valley, upon a large plain which still bears the name 
of the Shawanese Flats, and here they enjoyed many 
years of repose. The women cultivated corn upon 
the plains, and the men fished the river and tributary 
streams, or traversed the surrounding mountains in 
pursuit of game. 

This is the received account, and it is doubtless cor- 
rect, of the manner in which the Shawanese came into 
possession of this fair heritage, the valley of Wyoming. 
But at what exact period they entered upon it is not 
known. 

THE D E LA WAR ES. 

It is known, however, when and how the Delawares 
came afterward to claim with them a joint occupancy 
of the land, and to make their claim good. 

THE SIX NATIONS. 

The " Six Nations " were known by the general 
name of " Mingos." They consisted of the Onan- 
dagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneydas, Mohawks, and 
Tuscaroras, and were a powerful, warlike people, who 
held the surrounding nations in subjection, and claimed 
a jurisdiction extending from the Connecticut River 



WYOMING. 21 

to the Ohio. They are described as " a confederacy, 
who, by their union, courage, and military skill, had 
reduced a great number of Indian tribes, and subdued a 
territory more extensive than the whole kingdom of 
France.'* 

This people claimed the country occupied by the 
Delawares and Shawanese, and held these tribes sub- 
ject to their authority. After the arrival of Penn, he 
purchased of the Delaware Indians the country along 
the Delaware River, below the Blue Mountains, sup- 
posing those tribes the only legitimate owners ; but 
having been informed of the claim and powers of the 
Six Nations, he also negotiated a purchase with 
them. 

Difficulties arising between the proprietors and the 
Delawares respecting the limits of these purchases, the 
Delawares refused to give possession ; and as no 
accommodation seemed likely to take place, a message 
was sent from the governor to the Six Nations, inform- 
ing them of the circumstance, and requesting them to 
send deputies to meet in council in Philadelphia, with 
instructions to act upon all subjects in dispute. 

Accordingly, in the summer of 1742, the chiefs and 
principal warriors of the Six Nations, to the number of 
two hundred and thirty, repaired to Philadelphia, where 
they met the chiefs of the Delawares, and a general 
council was opened, in presence of the officers of the 



22 WYOMING, 

colonial government and a large concourse of citizens, 
in the great hall of the Council House. 

THE GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The governor, by means of an interpreter, opened 
the conference upon the part of the proprietaries in a 
long talk, which set forth that the proprietaries of 
Pennsylvania had purchased the land in the forks of 
the Delaware, several years before, of the Delaware 
tribes, who then possessed them ; that they had after- 
wards received information that the same lands were 
claimed by the Six Nations, and a purchase was also 
made of them ; that in both these purchases the pro- 
prietaries had paid the stipulated price ; but that the 
Delaware Indians had nevertheless refused to give up 
possession ; and as the Six Nations claimed authority 
over their country, it had been thought proper to hold 
a council of all parties, that justice might be done. 
The chiefs of the Six Nations were then informed, 
that as they had on all occasions required the govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania to remove any whites that 
settled on their lands, so now the government of 
Pennsylvania expected that the Six Nations would 
cause these Indians to remove from the lands which it 
had purchased. The deeds from the Indians and 
drafts of the disputed lands were then produced, and 
the whole submitted to the consideration of the council. 



tVrOMING. 



23 



THE INDIAN PHILIPPIC. 

After some deliberation among the different chiefs, 
Connossatego, a venerable chieftain, arose in the name 
of all the deputies, and informed the governor " that 
they saw that the Delawares had been an unruly peo- 
ple, and were altogether in the wrong, and that they 
had concluded to remove them ;" and, addressing 
himself to the Delawares in a violent manner, he 
said : — " You deserve to be taken by the hair of the 
head and shaken till you recover your senses and be- 
come sober. We have seen a deed signed by nine of. 
your chiefs, above fifty years ago, for this very land; 
But how came you to take upon yourselves to sell land 
at all ? We conquered you — we made women of you. 
You know you are women, and can no more sell lands 
than women. Nor is it fit that you should have the 
power of selling lands, since you would abuse it. You 
have been furnished with clothes, meat, and drink by 
the goods paid you for it, and now you want it again, 
like children as you are. But what makes you sell lands 
in the dark ? Did you ever tell us that you had sold 
these lands ? Did we ever receive any part, even the 
value of a pipe-shank ? You have told us a blind 
story, that you sent a messenger to us to inform us of 
the sale ; but he never came among us, nor have we 



24 IVrOMING 

ever heard any thing about it. But we find. that you 
are none of our blood, but act a dishonest part, not 
only in this but in other matters. Your ears are ever 
open to slanderous reports about your brethren. For 
all these reasons, we charge you to remove instantly : 
we don't give you liberty to think about it. You are 
women ; take the advice of a wise man and remove 
instantly. You may return to the other side of the 
Delaware, where you came from, but we do not know 
whether, considering how you have demeaned your- 
selves, you will be permitted to live there, or whether 
you have not swallowed that land down your throats, 
as well as the lands on this side. We therefore assign 
you two places to go to — either to Wyoming or Sham- 
okin. You may go to either of these places, and then 
we shall have you more under our eyes, and shall see 
how you behave. Don't deliberate, but remove away, 
and take this belt of wampum." He then commanded 
them to leave the council, as he had business to do 
with the English. 

The influence of the Six Nations was too powerful 
to be disregarded, and the speech of Connossatego had 
its full effect. The Delawares immediately left the 
disputed country — some removed to Shamokin and 
some to Wyoming. 



WYOMING. 25 



THE ARRIVAL OF THE DELAWARES AT 

WYOMING. 

On their arrival at Wyoming, the Delawares found 
the valley in possession of the Shawanese ; but as these 
Indians acknowledged the authority of the Six Nations, 
and knew that the removal of the Delawares was in 
consequence of their orders, resistance was thought to 
be inexpedient, and the Delawares, having taken quiet 
possession of a part of the valley, built their town of 
Maughwauwama on the east bank of the river, upon 
the lower flat, below the mouth of a small stream, and 
nearly opposite the first island above the mouth of 
Toby's Creek. Such was the origin of the Indian 
town of Wyoming. 

COUNT ZINZENDORF. 

Soon after the arrival of the Delawares, and during 
the same season (the summer of the year 1742), a dis- 
tinguished foreigner. Count Zinzendorf, of Saxony, 
visited the valley on a religious mission to the 
Indians. This nobleman is believed to have been the 
first white person that ever came to Wyoming. He 
was the reviver of the ancient church of the United 
Brethren, and had given protection in his dominions to 
the persecuted Protestants who had emigrated from 



26 WYOMING. 

Moravia, thence taking the name of Moravians.^ and 
who, two years before, had made their first settlement 
in Pennsylvania. 

Upon his arrival in America, Count Zinzendorf 
manifested great anxiety to have the Gospel preached 
to the Indians, and although he had heard much of 
the ferocity of the Shawanese, formed a resolution to 
visit them. With this view he repaired to Tulpehocken, 
the residence of Conrad Weiser, a celebrated Indian 
interpreter, and Indian agent for the Government, 
whom he wished to engage in the cause, and to accom- 
pany him to the Shawanese town. Weiser was too 
much occupied in business to go immediately to 
Wyoming ; but he furnished the count with letters to 
a missionary of the name of Mack, and the latter, 
accompanied by his wife, who could speak the Indian 
language, proceeded immediately with Zinzendorf on 
the projected mission. 



THE ALARM OF THE SHAWANESE. 

The Shawanese appeared to be alarmed at the ar- 
rival of the strangers, who pitched their tents on the 
banks of the river a little below the town, and a 
council of the chiefs having assembled, the declared 
purpose of Zinzendorf was deliberately considered. 
To these unlettered children of the wilderness, it ap- 



WYOMING. 



27 



peared altogether improbable that a stranger should 
brave the dangers of a boisterous ocean, three thou- 
sand miles broad, for the sole purpose of instructing 
them in the means of obtaining happiness after death, 
and that too without requiring any compensation for 
his trouble and expense ; and as they had observed the 
anxiety of the white people to purchase lands of the 
Indians, they naturally concluded that the real object 
of Zinzendorf was either to procure from them the 
lands at Wyoming for his own uses, to search for 
hidden treasures, or to examine the country with a view 
to future conquest. It was accordingly resolved to 
assassinate him, and to do it privately, lest the knowl- 
edge of the transaction should produce a war with 
the English, who were settling the country below 
the mountains. 



THE RATTLESNAKE LESSON. 

Zinzendorf was alone in his tent, seated on a couch 
of dry weeds, and engaged in writing, when the as- 
sassins approached to execute their bloody commission. 
It was night, and the cool air of September had ren- 
dered a small fire necessary to his comfort and con- 
venience. A curtain formed of a blanket, and hung 
upon pins, was the only guard to the entrance of his 
tent. The heat of his small fire had aroused a large 



28 JVrOMING. 

rattlesnake, which lay in the weeds not far. from it ; 
and the reptile, to enjoy it more effectually, crawled 
slowly into the tent, and passed over one of his legs 
undiscovered. Without all was still and quiet, except 
the gentle murmur of the river at the rapids, some 
distance below. At this moment the Indians softly 
approached the door of his tent, and, slightly removing 
the curtain, contemplated the venerable man, too 
deeply engaged in the subject of his thoughts to 
notice either their approach, or the snake which lay 
extended before him. At a sight like this, even the 
hearts of the savages shrunk from the idea of commit- 
ting so horrid an act, and, quitting the spot, they hastily 
returned to the town, and informed their companions 
that the Great Spirit protected the white man, for 
they had found him with no door but a blanket, and 
had seen a large rattlesnake crawl over his legs with- 
out attempting to injure him. 

THE COMING OF THE NANTICOKES. 

In May, 1748, large numbers of a tribe of Indians 
called the Nanticokes, who inhabited the eastern shore 
of the Chesapeake Bay, having difficulties with the 
increasing English settlements in that region, removed 
to Wyoming with their chief sachem, called White. 
Finding the principal part of the valley in possession 



WYOMING, 



29 



of the Shawanese and Delawares, the Nantlcokes built 
their town at the lower end of the valley, on the 
east bank of the river, just above the mouth of a small 
creek still called Nanticoke Creek. 



EARLY ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENTS 
OF WYOMING BY THE WHITES. 

Although Count Zinzendorf was the first white man 
that ever visited Wyoming, and some of the religious 
body with which he was connected, and of which he 
was the head, doubtless followed him to the valley 
shortly after, it does not appear that the Moravians 
made any attempt to remain permanently there ; they 
only visited it as missionaries, and in their efforts to 
Christianize the Indians they met with a measure of 
success. 

The permanent abode of the Brethren had been 
established at Bethlehem, on the Lehigh, which has 
been retained by them to the present time. 

THE CONNECTICUT COMPANY. 

In the summer of 1755, a company procured the 
consent of the colony of Connecticut for the establish- 
ment of a settlement within the limits of a purchase 
which had been made from the authorities of that 



30 JvroMiNG. 

colony. This company sent out a number of per- 
sons to Wyoming, with their surveyors and agents, 
to commence a settlement. The conflicting claims 
of the authorities of Connecticut and Pennsylvania 
to this region produced strife, and tumults, and even 
wars, which continued during many years after the 
possession of the valley had been confirmed to the 
whites. 

CONFLICTING CLAIMS. 

The following is a brief account of these conflicting 
claims : — Connecticut based her claim upon the grant 
which was derived from the Plymouth Company, of 
which the Earl of Warwick was president. This 
grant was made in March, 1631, to Viscount Say 
and Seal, Lord Brook, and their associates. It was 
made in the most ample form, and also covered the 
country west of Connecticut, to the extent of its 
breadth, thus comprising about one degree of latitude 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific* New York, or, to 
speak more correctly in reference to that period. New 
Netherlands, being then a Dutch possession, could not 
be claimed as a portion of these munificent grants ; if 
for no other reason, for the very good and substantial 

* <' It seems natural to suppose by the terms of these grants, extending 
to the Western Ocean, that in early times the continent was conceived to 
be of comparatively little breadth." — Pickering. 



frroMiNG. 



31 



one, that in the grants to the Plymouth Company an 
exception was made of all such portions of the terri- 
tory as were " then actually possessed or inhabited by 
any other Christian prince or state." 

The claim of Pennsylvania was based upon the 
charter granted by King Charles the Second, in 1681, 
to William Penn, the proprietor and governor of 
Pennsylvania, his heirs and assigns. 

Under each of these grants it was necessary that the 
Indian title to the lands included in them should be 
extinguished by purchase or otherwise^ and this was 
effectually accomplished — by purchase, treaty, entreaty, 
or otherwise. It is not designed in this compilation to 
set forth the condition of affairs growing out of con- 
flicting claims to jurisdiction on the part of Pennsylva- 
nia and Connecticut ; nor is it at all necessary to argue 
the question which was in the right. Time has set the 
matter at rest, for Wyoming may now claim to be the 
keystone in the arch of the Keystone State. 

At the date of the first attempts at settlement by the 
whites (1755), the valley was occupied by portions of 
three tribes of Indians, viz. : — the Nanticokes, at the 
foot of the valley upon the eastern side of the river ; 
the Delawares, above and on the same side ; the Shawa- 
nese, upon the western side, as has already been stated, 
occupying what are now known as the Shawanese 
Flats, where their principal village existed. 



32 



frroMiNG. 



THE GRASSHOPPER WAR. 

During the summer of 1755 the Nanticokes, having 
been induced to unite with other tribes of Indians in a 
war with the EngHsh Colonies, left the valley. A 
short period after this the Shawanese were driven out 
of the valley by their more powerful neighbors, the Del- 
awares, and the conflict which resulted in their leaving 
it grew out of, or was precipitated by, a very trifling in- 
cident. While the warriors of the Delawares were 
engaged upon the mountains in a hunting expedition, a 
number of squaws or female Indians from Maugh- 
wauwame were gathering wild fruits along the margin of 
the river below the town, where they found a number 
of Shawanese squaws and their children, who had 
crossed the river in their canoes upon the same busi- 
ness. A child belonging to the Shawanese having 
taken a large grasshopper, a quarrel arose among the 
children for the possession of it, in which their mothers 
soon took a part ; and as the Delaware squaws con- 
tended that the Shawanese had no privileges upon that 
side of the river, the quarrel became general ; but 
the Delawares, being the most numerous, soon drove 
the Shawanese to their canoes and to their own banks, 
a few having been killed on both sides. Upon the 
return of the warriors both tribes prepared for battle. 



frroMiNG. 



33 



to revenge the wrongs which they considered their 
wives had sustained. 

The Shawanese, upon crossing the river, found the 
Delawares ready to receive them, and, upon their land- 
ing, a dreadful conflict took place between the Shaw- 
anese in their canoes and the Delawares on the bank. 
At length, after great numbers had been killed, the 
Shawanese effected a landing, and a battle took place 
about a mile below Maughwauwame, in which many 
hundred warriors are said to have been killed on both 
sides ; but the Shawanese were so much weakened by 
landing that they were not able to sustain the con- 
flict, and after the loss of about half their tribe, the 
remainder were forced to flee to their own side of the 
river, shortly after which they abandoned their town 
and removed to the Ohio. 

THE DELAWARES TRIUMPHANT. 

The Delawares were now masters of Wyoming 
Valley, and the fame of their triumph, which was sup- 
posed to have driven the Shawanese to the west, tended 
very much to increase their numbers, by calling to their 
settlement many of those unfriendly Indians near the 
Delaware who remained on good terms with their 
Christian neip-hbors. We have now reached the 
period when the white man began to assert his suprem- 
acy ; when he began to increase, and the red man to 
3 



34 WrOMING. 

decrease ; the result being what has been or Is destined 
to be the result over the whole extent of the continent. 



ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 

Attempts at settlements were made from time to 
time at Wyoming ; the first permanent location of a 
colony or town being on the bank of the river, near 
Mill Creek, in the year 1762. A small house was 
built of logs at the mouth of the creek, which was soon 
surrounded by several small cabins, which formed the 
residence of the whole colony. They found the valley 
covered with woods, except a few acres, the planting- 
grounds of the Indians. 

The summer was so far advanced when the new 
colony arrived that they only prepared a few acres for 
wheat, and, as provisions for their sustenance during 
the winter could not be procured from the Indians, they 
concealed their tools and implements of husbandryj 
and in November departed for their former homes in 
New England. Early in the spring of 1763 they 
returned with their families, and a number of new 
emigrants, with a view of commencing a permanent set- 
tlement, for which purpose they brought a number of 
cattle and hogs, and considerable stores and provisions 
for immediate use. They took possession of their 



JVrOMING. 35 

former dwellings at the mouth of the creek, which 
they found in the same condition as that in which they 
had been left in the preceding autumn ; and com- 
menced their labors by extending their improvements 
upon the west side of the river. 

INDIAN TREACHERY. 

The Indians in the valley were apparently friendly, 
but this was only the smiling mask which concealed the 
bitterest passions, for while unsuspicious, and occupied 
as usual with the labors of the field, the whites were 
attacked on the 15th of October by a party of Indians, 
who massacred about twenty persons, took several pris- 
oners, and, having seized upon the live stock, drove it 
toward their town. Those who escaped hastened to 
their dwellings, gave the alarm to the families of those 
who were killed, and the remainder of the colonists, 
men, women, and children, fled precipitately to the 
mountains, from whence they beheld the smoke arising 
from their late habitations, and the savages feasting on 
the remains of their little property. They had taken 
no provisions with them except what they hastily seized 
in their flight ; and now must pass through a wilderness 
sixty miles in extent before they could reach the Dela- 
ware River. They had left brothers, husbands, and 
sons to the mercy of the savages ; they had no means 
of defense in case they should be attacked, and they 



36 



JFTOMING. 



found themselves exposed to the cold winds of autumn 
without sufficient raiment. With^ these melancholy 
recollections and cheerless prospects did the fugitives 
commence a journey of two hundred and fifty miles on 
foot. Language can not describe their sufferings as 
they traveled through the wilderness, destitute of food 
and clothing, on their way to their former homes. 

NEW BANDS OF COLONISTS. 

But the sturdy sons of New England were unmoved 
and unfaltering in their purpose to go up and possess 
the land. 

Colonists and emigrants from this time forward came 
into the valley, and though they were liable to be 
startled by the war-whoop of the relentless savages, and 
to be called from their beds at the dread hour of night 
to witness the sad sight of peaceful abodes wrapt in 
flames, or to see father, mother, brother, son, butchered 
or tortured it might be, and they themselves perhaps 
compelled to look on the while in speechless agony ; 
they still nerved themselves to bear their misery and 
privations like men, waiting for those peaceful and 
happy times which would surely come for them, or, at 
least, for their children. Noble and brave men, noble 
and self-sacrificing women ! they did not count their lives 
dear ; they endured bitter hardships ; they have entered 
upon their rest j but now their children and their chil- 



wroMiNG. 37 

dren's children are in the quiet and unmolested posses- 
sion of that for which they so bravely fought and 
suffered. The clods of the valley have been heaped 
over their resting-places, and, though many of their 
graves are unknown and undistinguished, their memory 
is cherished, and the story of the privations they 
endured, the valor they displayed upon many a well- 
fought field, or in limited and personal encounters, is not 
forgotten, and their deeds recounted at the winter fire- 
side, written out by the historian, and strung in lofty 
numbers by great poets. Thus, what with battling 
the Indian without, and strifes and contentions within, 
growing out of conflicting claims to the territory of 
Wyoming, passed years that included in their progress 
the war of the Revolution. Although remote from the 
scene of its origin, where during its first years the 
battle raged, and hoping to enjoy exemption from its 
stern realities, the colony struggled along, yet the time 
came when Wyoming was destined to receive again the 
baptism of blood. 



THE STORY OF THE GREAT MASSACRE. 

For a season after the breaking out of the war of 
the Revolution, Wyoming was allowed a state of com- 



38 WYOMING. 

m 

parative repose. The government of Pennsylvania 
was changed by the removal of the proprietaries or 
successors of Penn, and the formation of a new con- 
stitution ; and both Connecticut and Pennsylvania had 
other and more important demands upon their attention 
than the disputes of rival claimants for a remote and 
sequestered territory. Notwithstanding the remote- 
ness of its position, and its peculiar exposure to the 
attacks of the enemy, rendered more perilous from its 
contiguity to the territory of the Six Nations, the peo- 
ple of Wyoming were prompt to assume the cause of 
their country, and, as early as the ist of August, 1775, 
in town meeting they voted, "that we will unanimously 
join our brethren of America in the common cause of 
defending our country." 

THE WYOMINGCOMPANIES. 

A census had been taken, and the whole population 
of the several towns of the valley now acknowledging 
the jurisdiction of Connecticut was computed at about 
two thousand five hundred souls. Two companies of 
regular troops, of eighty-two men each, were raised, 
and commanded by Captains Ransom and Durkee. 
These companies were mustered and counted as part 
of the Connecticut levies, and attached to the Con- 
necticut line. They were moreover efficient soldiers, 
having been engaged in the brilliant affair of Millstone, 



IFTOMING. 



39 



the bloody and untoward battles of Brandywine and 
Germantown, and in the terrible cannonade of Mud- 
bank. It will thus be seen that a considerable draft 
had been made upon the fighting materials of this colony, 
and her sons had been called away to fight " freedom's 
battles" at other and distant points. But, in the mean 
time, the war was brought home to them — to their 
doors even. 



THE BRITISH AND INDIANS. 

The Indians of the Six Nations were brought into 
the field against the Colonies in the summer of 1777, 
and shortly after they, in conjunction with the British 
forces, organized a plan of attack on Wyoming. It 
was too successful. There were no settlements con- 
tiguous to Wyoming upon which they might call for 
aid in case of sudden emergency. It was distant 
from any outpost ; an isolated community, almost 
embosomed in the country of a savage enemy. The 
Six Nations, ever the most dreaded upon the war-path, 
occupied all the upper branches of the Susquehanna, 
and were within a few hours' sail of the Plantations. 

Thus situated, there had been a conventional under- 
standing between the government and the people of 
Wyoming, that the regular troops enlisted among them 
should be stationed there, for the defense of the valley ; 



40 WYOMING. 

but the exigencies of the service required their presence 
elsewhere, and not only were they ordered away, but 
other enlistments were made, to the number In all of 
about three hundred. The only means of defense re- 
maining consisted of mllitia-men, the greater proportion 
of- whom were either too old or too young for the 
regular service. No small degree of uneasiness was 
created, early in 1778, by the conduct of the loyalists 
yet remaining in the valley. These apprehensions 
were allayed for a time by messages of peace received 
from the Indians. But these messages were deceptive, 
as was ascertained In March by the confessions of one 
of them, who, while In a state of partial intoxication, 
revealed their real purposes. They had sent their 
messenger to Wyoming merely to lull the Inhabitants 
Into such a state of security as would enable them to 
strike a surer blow. And this blow was struck, re- 
morselessly, fatally struck, on the 3d of July, 1778. 

THE A TTA C K. 

The details of this bloody battle ; the massacre that 
ensued ; the desolation of the valley that followed ; the 
flight of the survivors down the river, in canoes or 
hastily constructed rafts, to reach Sunbury, the nearest 
Inhabited post down the Susquehanna ; through the 
great swamp and over the Pocono range of mountains 



WYOMING. 



41 



to the settlements on the Delaware, a pathless wilder- 
ness, also sixty miles distant ; the sufferings that were 
experienced ; the perils that were encountered — are all 
set forth with painful and harrowing particularity by 
Mr. Charles Miner, in his History of Wyoming. 
Suffice it here to add that the- ruin was complete — " the 
fiends prevailed ;" Wyoming received the baptism of 
blood ; the chalice of woe was held to her lips, and 
she drank it to the bitter dregs. 



THE FLIGHT. 

The fugitives generally crossed the mountains to 
Stroudsburg, where there was a small military post. 
Their flight was a scene of wide-spread and harrowing 
terror. The people were scattered, singly, in pairs, 
and in larger groups, as chance separated them or 
threw them together in that sad hour of peril and 
distress. Let the mind picture to itself a single group, 
flying from the valley to the mountains on the east, 
and climbing the steep ascent, hurrying onward, filled 
with terror, despair, and sorrow ; the affrighted mother, 
whose husband had fallen, an infant on her bosom, the 
child by the hand ; an aged parent slowly climbing the 
rugged steep behind them ; hunger presses them 
severely ; in the rustling of every leaf they hear the 
approaching savage ; the deep and dreary wilderness ; 



42 WYOMING. 

the valley all in flames ; in the spring- flood of ruin, 
the star of hope quenched in this blood-shower of 
savage vengeance. There is no work of fancy in a 
sketch like this. Indeed, it can not approach the 
reality. There were in one of the groups that 
crossed the mountains — one of those that did not 
perish by the way — one hundred women and children, 
and but a single man to aid, direct, and protect them. 
Their sufferings for want, for food, were intense. A 
number perished on the journey, principally women 
and children ; some died of their wounds ; others 
wandered from their path in search of food, and were 
lost ; and those who survived called the wilderness 
through which they passed " The Shades of Death," 
an appellation which it has ever since retained. 

Many of the fugitives continued their journey back 
to Connecticut, ascending the Delaware, and crossing 
over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie. 



THE SAD RETURN. 

The fields of Wyoming were waving with heavy 
burdens of grain ripening for the harvest at the time 
of the invasion. The enemy, having completed their 
work of destruction, retired, and, shortly after, con- 
siderable numbers of the settlers returned to secure 



WYOMING. 



43 



their crops. They also gathered the mutilated and 
blackened remains of their fallen brothers, and, bury- 
ing them in two pits, retired. The bodies were 
found scattered over the battle-field, and where they 
had fallen in their flight ; but the summer's sun had 
done its work so effectually that they could not be 
separately identified, and so, in these two pits, ranged 
as decently as could be, they were buried. The exact 
locality remained for a long time unknown, and it was 
not till 1832 that it was discovered, and the bones of 
those who had fallen in the fight exposed to view ; 
appropriate religious services were solemnized, and 
other marks of respect extended to their honored re- 
mains. 

THE MONUMENT. 

Measures were instituted to erect a suitable monu- 
ment on the spot, and the pious determination has been 
carried out ; but it was not till the women of Wyoming 
took the design In hand that the work was completed. 
They engaged in it as a labor of love — and having set 
their hearts to the task, what with donations by them 
secured, and the results of the labors of willing and 
industrious hands, ere long " The Wyoming Monu- 
ment " was erected. An obelisk, about sixty feet In 
height, bearing the following inscription, has been the 
result : — 



44 JvroMiNG. 

" Near this spot was fought, ' 

On the afternoon of Friday, the third day of July, 1778, 

THE BATTLE OF WYOMING, 

In which a small band of patriot-Americans, 

chiefly the undisciplined, the youthful, and the aged, 

spared by inefficiency from the distant ranks of the republic, 

led by Col. Zebulon Butler and Col. Nathan Denison, 

with a courage that deserved success, 

boldly met and bravely fought 

a combined British, Tory, and Indian force, 

of thrice their number. 

Numerical superiority alone gave success to the invader, 

and wide-spread havoc, desolation, and ruin 

marked his savage and bloody footsteps through the valley. 

THIS MONUMENT, 

commemorative of these events, 

and of the actors in them, 

has been erected 

over the bones of the slain. 

By their descendants, and others who gratefully appreciated 

the services and sacrifices of their patriot-ancestors." 



It has not been attempted in this compilation of the 
Romance of the History of Wyoming to include an 
account of each of the invasions or irruptions that were 
made upon the early settlers of the valley, or to furnish 
the details of adventure and suffering and death, in all 
the horrible and atrocious forms that savage cruelty and 
vindictiveness could inflict ; but merely to indicate a 
few of the events which have made the valley a shrine 



WYOMING. 45 

to which history and poetry have dedicated some of 
their noblest efforts. 

The trouble between the conflicting claimants for 
jurisdiction, after various attempts to fight them out, 
was arranged by compromises and agreements. The 
last of the engagements in this war between the 
Yankees and the Pennymites, in which lives were lost, 
took place on the i8th of October, 1784. It was long 
before the settlers were secured in the quiet possession 
of their lands. But as time passed, wiser counsels pre- 
vailed. A compromise was entered upon, in virtue of 
which the original settlers were secured the possession 
of their homes, and the long feud was finally healed. 

Half a century of peace and prosperity has almost 
effaced the memory of the troublous years that suc- 
ceeded, as it will require another half century to efface 
the memory of the bitter contest from which the 
country has recently so successfully emerged. 

Things have moved along quietly in the valley for 
years ; the development of her mineral wealth has 
brought in crowding ranks from every people and 
tongue and kindred ; but while she has increased in 
wealth and material prosperity, the romance of her 
history closed with the century. The shaft and the 
big tunnel and the drifts have taken the place of stock- 
ade and forts and redoubts ; the puffing of the steam- 
engines and the locomotives, as they go whirling through 



46 JVrOMING. 

the valley, give out sounds other than the war-whoop 
of the savage and the mingled shouts and screams 
which followed it, and the light from her mountain 
sides is not that of the cannon or the wide-spread con- 
flagration. Peace is written on her walls and prosperity 
in all her palaces. One sad episode will close the 
Romance of the History of Wyoming, viz. : 



THE STORY OF FRANCES SLOCUM. 

[From Stone's " History of Wyoming." New York, 1841.] 

The Slocum family of Wyoming were distinguished 
for their sufferings during the war of the Revolution, 
and have been recently brought more conspicuously 
before the public in connection with the life of a long- 
lost, but recently discovered sister ; the story of the 
family opens with tragedy, and ends with romance 
without fiction. 

Mr. Slocum, the father of the subject of the present 
narrative, was a non-combatant, being a member of 
the Society of Friends. Feeling himself, therefore, 
safe from the hostility even of the savages, he did 
not join the survivors of the massacre in their flight, 
but remained quietly in his farm — his house remain- 
ing in close proximity to the village of Wilkes-Barre. 



WYOMING. 



M 



But the beneficent principles of his faith had little 
weight with the Indians, notwithstanding the affection 
with which their race had been treated by the founder 
of Quakerism in Pennsylvania, the illustrious Penn, 
and long had the family cause to mourn their impru- 
dence in not retreating from the doomed valley with 
their neighbors. 

It was in the autumn of the same year of the 
invasion by Butler and Gi-en-gwah-toh, at midday, 
when the men were laboring in a distant field, that 
the house of Mr. Slocum was suddenly surrounded 
by a party of Delawares, prowling about the valley 
in more earnest search, as it seemed, of plunder, 
than of scalps or prisoners. 

The inmates of the house, at the moment of the 
surprise, were Mrs. Slocum and four young children, 
the eldest of whom was a son, aged thirteen ; the sec- 
ond a daughter, aged nine ; Frances Slocum, aged five ; 
and a little son, aged two years and a half. Near by 
the house, engaged in grinding a knife, was a young 
man named Kingsley, assisted in the operation by a 
lad. The first hostile act of the Indians was to shoot 
down Kingsley, and take his scalp with the knife he 
had been sharpening. 

The girl nine years old appeared to have had the 
most presence of mind, for while the mother ran into 
the edge of the copse of wood near by, Frances at- 



48 JVrOMING. 

tempted to secret herself behind a staircase, and the 
former seized her Httle brother, the youngest above 
mentioned, and ran off in the direction of the fort. 
True she could not make rapid progress, for she clung 
to the child, and not even the pursuit of the savages 
could induce her to drop her charge. The Indians 
did not pursue her far, and laughed heartily at the 
panic of the little girl, vj\\\\q they could not but 
admire her resolution. Allowing her to make her 
escape, they returned to the house, and, after helping 
themselves to such articles as they chose, prepared to 
depart. 

The mother seems to have been unobserved by 
them, although, with yearning bosom, she had so 
disposed of herself that while she was screened from 
observation, she could notice all that occurred. But 
judge of her feelings, at the moment they were about 
to depart, as she saw little Frances taken from her 
hiding-place, and preparations made to carry her away 
into captivity with her brother, already mentioned as 
being thirteen years old (who, by the way, had been 
restrained from attempted flight by lameness in one 
of his feet), and also the lad who a few moments 
before had been assisting Kingsley at the grindstone. 
The sight was too much for maternal tenderness to 
endure. Rushing from her place of concealment, 
she threw herself upon her knees at the feet of her 



WYOMING. 



49 



captors, and, with the most earnest entreaties, pleaded 
for their restoration. But their bosoms were made 
of sterner stuff than to yield even to the most eloquent 
and affectionate of mother's entreaties, and with char- 
acteristic stoicism they began to move. As a last resort, 
the mother appealed to their selfishness, and pointing 
to the maimed foot of her crippled son, urged as a reason 
why they should at least relinquish him, the delays and 
embarrassment he would occasion them on their journey. 
Being unable to walk, they would, of course, be 
compelled to carry him the whole distance, or leave 
him by the way, or take his life. Although insensible 
to the feelings of humanity, these considerations had 
the desired effect. The lad was left behind, while, 
deaf alike to the cries of the mother and the shrieks 
of the child, Frances was slung over the shoulder 
of a stalwart Indian with as much indifference as 
though she were a slaughtered fawn. 

The long, lingering look which the mother gave 
to her child, as her captors disappeared in the forest, 
was the last glimpse of her sweet features that she 
ever had. But the vision was for many a long year 
ever present to her fancy. 

As the Indian threw her child over his shoulder, her 
hair fell over her face, and the mother could never for- 
get how the tears streamed down her cheeks when she 
brushed it away, as if to catch a last sad look of the 
4 



50 JVrOMING. 

mother from whom, her little arms outstretched, she 
implored assistance in vain. 

Nor was this the last visit of the savages to the 
domicile of Mr. Slocum. About a month thereafter, 
another horde of the barbarians rushed down from 
the mountains and murdered the aged grandfather of 
the little captives, and wounded the lad already lame 
by the accidental discharge of a ball which lodged in 
his leg, and which he carried with him to his grave, 
more than half a century afterward. 

These events cast a shadow over the remaining 
years of Mrs. Slocum. She lived to see many bright 
and sunny days in that beautiful valley ; bright and 
sunny, alas ! to her no longer. She mourned the loss 
of one of whom no tidings, at least during her pilgrim- 
age, could be obtained. After her sons grew up, the 
youngest of whom, by the way, was born but a few 
months subsequent to the events already narrated, 
obedient to the charge of their mother, the most un- 
wearied efforts were made to ascertain what had been 
the fate of the lost sister. The forests between the 
Susquehanna and the great lakes, and even the more 
distant wilds of Canada, were traversed by the brothers 
in vain, nor could any information respecting her be 
derived from the Indians. In process of time these 
efforts were relinquished as hopeless. The lost one 
might have fallen beneath the tomahawk, or might have 



IVrOMING. 51 

proved too tender a flower for transplantation into the 
wilderness. Conjecture was baffled, and the mother, 
with a sad heart, sank into the grave, as also did the 
father, believing, with the Hebrew patriarch, that " the 
child was not/* 

The years of a generation passed, and the memory 
of httle Frances was forgotten, save by the two brothers 
and a sister, who, though advanced in the vale of life, 
could not forget the family tradition of the lost one. 
Indeed, it had been the dying charge of their mother 
that they must never relinquish their exertions to dis- 
cover Frances. A change now comes over the spirit 
of the story. It happened that in the course of the 
year 1835, Colonel Ewing, a gentleman connected with 
the Indian trade, and also with the pubhc service of the 
country, in traversing a remote section of Indiana, was 
overtaken by the night while at a distance from the 
abodes of civilized man. When it became too dark for 
him to pursue his way, he sought an Indian habitation, 
and was so fortunate as to find shelter and a welcome 
in one of the better sort. The proprietor of the lodge 
was indeed opulent. for an Indian, possessing horses 
and skins and other comforts in abundance. He was 
struck, in the course of the evening, by the appearance 
of the venerable mistress of the lodge, whose com- 
plexion was lighter than that of her family ; and as 
glimpses were occasionally disclosed of her skin, be- 



52 IVrOMING. 

neath her blanket robe, the Colonel was Impressed 
with the opinion that she was a white woman. Colonel 
Ewing could converse in the Miami language, to 
which nation his wife belonged, and after partaking of 
the best of their cheer, he drew the aged squaw into a 
conversation, which soon confirmed his suspicions, that 
she was only an Indian by adoption. Her narrative was 
substantially as follows : — 

" My father's name was Slocum. He resided on 
the banks of the Susquehanna, but the name of the 
valley I do not recollect. Sixty winters and summers 
have gone since I was taken captive by a party of 
Delawares, while I was playing before my father's 
house. I was too young to feel, for any length of 
time, the misery and anxiety which my parents must 
have experienced. The kindness and affection with 
which I was treated by my Indian captors, soon effaced 
my childish uneasiness, and in a short time I became 
one of them. The first night of my captivity was 
passed in a cave near the summit of a mountain, but 
little distance from my father's. That night was the 
unhappiest of my life, and the impression which it made 
was the means of indelibly stamping on my memory 
my father's name and residence. For years we led a 
roving life. I became accustomed to and fond of their 
manner of living. They taught me the use of the bow 
and arrow j the beasts of the forest supplied me with 



WYOMING. 



53 



food. I married a chief of our tribe, whom I had long 
loved for his bravery and humanity, and kindly did he 
treat me. I dreaded the sight of a white man ; for I 
was taught to believe him the implacable enemy of the 
Indian. I thought he was determined to separate me 
from my husband and our tribe. 

" After I had been a number of years with my hus- 
band he died ; a part of my people joined the Miamis, 
and I was among them. I married a Miami, who was 
called by the pale faces the deaf man. I lived with him 
a good many winters, until he died. I had by him two 
sons and two daughters. I am now old and have 
nothing to fear from the white man. My husband and 
all my children, but these two daughters, my brothers 
and sisters have all gone to the Great Spirit, and I shall 
go in a few moons more. Until this moment I have 
never revealed my name, or told the mystery that hung 
over the fate of Frances Slocum." 

Such was the substance of the revelation to Colonel 
Ewing. Still the family at Wyoming were ignorant of 
the discovery, nor did Colonel Ewing know any thing 
of them. And it was only by reason of a peculiar 
providential circumstance that the tidings ever reached 
their ears. On Colonel Ewing's return to his own 
home he related the adventure to his mother, who, 
with the just feelings of a woman, urged him to take 
some measures to make the discovery known, and at 



54 ivroMiNG. . 

her solicitation he was induced to write a narrative of 
the case, which he addressed to the postmaster at Lan- 
caster, with a request that it might be published in some 
Pennsylvania newspaper. But the latter functionary, 
having no knowledge of the writer, and supposing it 
might be a hoax, paid no attention to it, and the letter 
was suffered to remain among the worthless accumula- 
tions of the office for two years. It chanced then that 
the postmaster's wife, in rummaging over the old papers, 
while ferreting the office one day, glanced her eyes 
upon this communication. The story excited her in- 
terest, and, with the true feelings of a woman, she 
resolved upon giving the document publicity. With 
this view she sent it to the neighboring editor, and here 
again another providential circumstance intervened. It 
happened that. a temperance committee had engaged a 
portion of the columns of the paper to which the letter 
of Colonel Ewing was sent, for the publication of an 
important document connected with that cause, and a 
large extra number of papers had been ordered for 
general distribution. The letter was sent forth with 
the temperance document, and it yet again happened 
that a copy of this paper was addressed to a clergyman 
who had a brother residing in Wyoming. Having 
from that brother heard the story of the captivity of 
Frances Slocum, he had no sooner read the letter of 
Colonel Ewing, than he inclosed it to him, and by him 



WYOMING. 55 

it was placed In the hands of Joseph Slocum, Esq., the 
surviving brother. 

Any attempts to describe the sensations produced by 
this most welcome, most strange, and most unexpected 
intelligence, would necessarily be a failure. This Mr. 
Joseph Slocum was the child, two years and a half old, 
who had been rescued by his intrepid sister, nine years 
old. That sister also survived, as did the younger 
brother, living in Ohio. Arrangements Were imme- 
diately made by the former two to meet the latter in 
Ohio, and proceed thence to the Miami country and 
reclaim the long lost and now found sister. " I shall 
know her if she be my sister," said the elder sister, now 
going in pursuit, "although she may be painted and 
jeweled off, and dressed in her Indian blanket, for 
you, brother, hammered off her finger-nail one day in 
the blacksmith's shop, when she was four years old." 
In due season they reached the designated place, and 
found their sister. But, alas ! how changed ! instead 
of the fair-haired and laughing girl, the picture yet 
living in their imaginations, they found her an aged and 
thoroughbred squaw in every thing but complexion. 
But there could be no mistake as to her identity. The 
elder sister soon discovered the finger-mark. " How 
came the nail of that finger gone ?" " My elder 
brother pounded it off when I was a little girl, in the 
shop," she replied. This circumstance was evidence 



56 JvroMiNG. 

enough, but other reminiscences were awakened, and 
the recognition was complete. How different were the 
emotions of the parties ! The brothers paced the 
lodge in agitation. The civilized sister was in tears. 
The other, obedient to the affected stoicism of her 
adopted race, was as cold, unmoved, and passionless as 
marble. 

It was in vain that they besought their sister to 
return with them to her native valley, bringing her 
children with her if she chose. Every offer and impor- 
tunity was declined. She said she was well enough off, 
and happy. She had, moreover, promised her husband 
on his death-bed never to leave the Indians. Her two 
daughters had both been married, but one of them was 
a widow. The husband of the other is a half-breed 
named Brouillette, who is said to be one of the noblest 
looking men of his race. They all have an abundance 
of Indian wealth, and her daughters mount their steeds, 
and manage them as well as in the days of chivalry did 
the rather masculine spouse of Count Robert of Paris. 
They lived at a place called the Deaf Man's Village, 
nine miles from Peru, in Indiana. But, notwithstanding 
the comparative comfort in which they lived, the utter 
ignorance of their sister was a subject of painful con- 
templation to the Slocums. She had entirely forgotten 
her native language, and was completely a pagan, having 
no knowledge even of the white man's Sabbath. 



IVrOMING. 57 

Mr. Joseph Slocum has since made a second visit to 
his sister, accompanied by his two daughters. Frances 
is said to have been delighted Wiih the beauty and 
accomplishments of her white nieces, but resolutely 
refused to return to the abode of civilized man. She 
resided with her daughters in a comfortable log building, 
but in all her habits and manners, her ideas and 
thoughts, she is as thoroughly Indian as though not a 
drop of white blood ran in her veir)s. She is repre- 
sented as having manifested, for an Indian, an un- 
wonted degree of pleasure at the return of her 
brothers ; but mother and daughters spurned every per- 
suasive to win them back from the country and man- 
ners of their people. Indeed, as all their ideas of hap- 
piness are associated with their present mode of life, a 
change would be productive of httle good, so far as 
temporal affairs are concerned, while, unless they could 
be won from Paganism to Christianity, their lives would 
drag along in irksome restraint, if not in pining 
sorrow. 



58 frroMiNG. 



THE POETRY OF WYOMING. 



"Romantic Wyoming! could none be found, 

Of all that rove thy Eden groves among, 
To wake a nati've harp's untutored sound. 

And give thy tale of vfoc the voice of song ? 
Oh ! if description's cold and nerveless tongue 

From stranger harps such hallowed strains could call, 
How doubly sweet the descant wild had rung. 

From one who, lingering round * thy ruined wall,' 

Had plucked thy mourning flowers and wept thy timeless fall." 

Drake. 

Campbell's immortal poem, " Gertrude of Wyo- 
ming," beyond any inspiration of the muse which the 
sad story of her early history furnishes, has spread the 
name and fame of the Valley of Wyoming to earth's 
remotest bounds. 

This beautiful pastoral was completed in 1808, and 
published in 1809, and a second edition followed the 
next year. As soon as it was known that the cele- 
brated author of " The Pleasures of Hope" was em- 
ployed upon a new poem, and a poem of length, expec- 



JVrOMING. 



59 



tation was on tiptoe for Its appearance. The informa- 
tion first got wind in the drawing-room of Holland 
House. Then the subject was named — then a bit of 
the story told by Lord Holland, and a verse or two quoted 
by Lady Holland ; so that the poem had every adver- 
tisement which rank, fashion, reputation, and the poet's 
own standing could lend it. The story was liked — then 
the meter was named and approved — then a portion 
shown ; so that the poet had his coterie of fashion and 
wits before the public knew even the title of the poem 
they were trained up to receive with the acclamation it 
deserved. Nor was public expectation disappointed 
when it became generally known that the poet had gone 
to the banks of the Susquehanna for his poem — had 
chosen the desolation of Wyoming for his story, and 
the Spenserian stanza for his form of verse. The 
poet, however, was still timidly fearful, though he had 
the imprimatur of Holland House in favor of his poem. 

He sent the first printed copy of his poem to Mr. 
Jeffrey, of the Edinburgh Review. The critic's reply 
was favorable. Mrs. Campbell has said that, till he 
had received Jeffrey's approbation, her husband was 
suffering, to use his own expression, " the horrors of 
the damned." 

When Jeffrey read " Gertrude," he wrote to the 
author, and, with that perspicacity which so well adapted 
him for the post of a reviewer, said that the poem 



6o JvroMiNG. 

ended abruptly. " Not but that there is great spirit 
in the description," he added, " but a spirit not quite 
suitable to the soft and soothing tenor of the poem. 
The most dangerous faults, however, are your faults of 
diction. There is still a good deal of obscurity in 
many passages, and in others a strained and unnatural 
expression — an appearance of labor and hardness. 
You have hammered the metal in some places till it 
has lost all its ductility. These are not great faults, 
but they are blemishes ; and as dunces will find them 
out, noodles will see them when they are pointed to. I 
wish you had courage to correct, or rather avoid them, 
for with you they are faults of over-finishing, not of 
negligence. I have another fault to charge you with in 
private, for which I am more angry than all the rest. 
Your timidity, or fastidiousness, or some other knavish 
quality, will not let you give your conceptions glowing, 
and bold, and powerful, as they present themselves, 
but you must chasten, and refine, and soften them for- 
sooth, till half their nature and grandeur is chiseled 
away from them." This was sound advice, friendly, 
and worthy of the critic. This criticism came home 
to the poet's faults, which in his better days were too 
close an adherence to that nicety of verbal polish and 
disregard of the more manly sense, which are distin- 
guishing traits of university practice in exercise and 
translation. There were other errors. In " The 



JVrOMING. 6l 

Pleasures of Hope," he had Introduced panthers on the 
shores of Lake Erie ; but there is no such animal in 
the United States — the ounce-like creature, the cougar 
or jaguar, and the puma, in the South, not being the 
panthers or leopards of the Old World, but a distinct 
species. Then the flamingo, the aloe, and palm-tree 
of the tropics are placed in the severe cHmate of Penn- 
sylvania, in which plants that flourish well in England 
perish during the intensity of its winter. These, how- 
ever, were blemishes which only served to set off the 
merits of the poem in other respects. The Edinburgh 
Review passed high encomiums upon it ; Dugald 
Stewart was delighted with it ; Mr. Alison conveyed 
to the author the admiration of his Edinburgh friends 
in glowing colors. The poet wrote, in consequence, to 
a friend : — " Alison's letter is a thing belonging to the 
heart. Poor Stewart's tears are at present no certain 
test ; his great, but always susceptible mind is reduced, 
I dare say, to almost puerile weakness, if I may say it 
with due reverence to his name (he was suffering 
under a domestic affliction). Now, let me ask, is it 
very great ostentation to betray the first symptoms of 
doubtful success to you ? To you, who are so dear to 
my heart that you will excuse even its foibles ? I 
must not exclude your family from hearing something 
of ' Gertrude.' " 

Jeffrey being a Whig, a Whig poet was safe in those 



62 JVrOMING. 

days when in the hands of a Whig critic. Campbell 
had more to fear from the critical acumen of a Tory 
writer ; but only one number of the ^arterly Review 
had then appeared. If GifFord had dissected " little 
Miss Gertrude," he might have stopped the sale, for a 
time, of a new edition ; but no critical ferocity could 
have kept down " Gertrude of Wyoming " for more 
than one season. But GifFord was prepossessed in 
favor of Campbell ; he liked his versification and his 
classical correctness \ so the poem was intrusted to a 
friendly hand — one prepossessed, like GifFord, in his 
favor — the greatest writer and the most generous critic 
of his age — Sir Walter Scott. 

The story is deficient in invention, in which the 
other works of the poet show that he did not shine. 
There is enough to carry the simple details required, 
but no more ; and the excellences consist in an all-per- 
vading sweetness and tenderness of handling, in the 
purity of the sentiment, the richness and splendor, 
and the pointed vigor displayed in many of the pas- 
sages. If it does not sparkle like " The Pleasures 
of Hope," or attract so much by its polish and the 
artifice of its verse, it possesses a wider range of vision, 
and touches more deeply the sympathies of the reader. 

Campbell was born on the 27th of July, 1777, in 
Glasgow, and died at Boulogne, on the 15th of June, 
1844. His remains were brought to England, and 



IVrOMING. 63 

interred in Westminster Abbey, by the side of the 
ashes of Sheridan, on the 3d of July following. 

Halleck visited Wyoming in 1823, and stopped at 
what was then the principal hotel in Wilkes-Barre, on 
River Street, below Northampton, and where Louis 
Philippe and his suite were entertained during their 
journey through the country in 1795. Halleck's 
spirited production appeared shortly after his visit 
to the valley. He was born in Guilford, Con- 
necticut, in 1795, to which quiet town he retired a few 
years since to spend the evening of his days. It is 
supposed that the poem of " Wyoming " was partly 
written in reply to his friend Drake's challenge, entitled 
" Lines to a Friend," from which we have quoted the 
beautiful lines at the commencement. 

In addition, a few specimens of local poetry are sub- 
mitted. These " uncouth rhymes," which 



« 



Implore the passing tribute of a sigh," 



it can not be doubted, will be acceptable to the anti- 
quarian, ^ _.;... 



GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

Most of the popular histories of England, as well as of the American 
war, give an authentic account of the desolation of Wyoming, in Penn- 
sylvania, which took place in 1778, by an incursion of the Indians. 
The scenery and incidents of the following Poem are connected with that 
event. The testimonies of historians and travelers concur in describing 
the infant colony as one of the happiest spots of human existence, for the 
hospitable and innocent manners of the inhabitants, the beauty of the 
country, and the luxuriant fertility of the soil and climate. In an evil 
hour, the junction of European with Indian arms converted this ter- 
restrial paradise into a frightful waste. Mr. Isaac Weld informs us that 
the ruins of many of the villages, perforated with balls, and bearing marks 
of conflagration, were still preserved by the recent inhabitants, when he 
traveled through America, in 1796. 



GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. 



PART I. 



I. 

On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming ! 
Although the wild-flower on thy ruined wall 
And roofless homes, a sad remembrance bring 
Of what thy gentle people did befall : 
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all 
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore. 
Sweet land ! may I thy lost delights recall. 
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore. 
Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's shore. 

II. 

Delightful Wyoming ! beneath thy skies. 
The happy shepherd swains had naught to do 
But feed their flocks on green declivities. 
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe, 



68 wroMiNG. 

From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew, 
With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown 
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew ; 
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down 
Would echo flagelet from some romantic town. 



III. 

Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes 
His leave, how might you the flamingo see 
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes — 
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree : 
And every sound of life was full of glee. 
From merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men ; 
While hearkening, fearing naught their revelry. 
The wild deer arched his neck from glades, and then, 
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again. 



IV. 

And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime 
Heard, but in Transatlantic story rung. 
For here the exile met from every clime. 
And spoke in friendship every distant tongue : 
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung. 
Were but divided by the running brook ; 
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung. 



IVrOMING. 69 

On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook, 
The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning- 
hook. 

V. 

Nor far some Andalusian saraband 

Would sound to many a native roundelay — 

But who is he that yet a dearer land 

Remembers, over hills and far away ? 

Green Albin !* what though he no more survey 

Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore, 

Thy pellochs f rolling from the mountain bay, 

Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor. 

And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar !J 



VI. 

Alas ! poor Caledonia's mountaineer. 
That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief. 
Had forced him from a home he loved so dear ! 
Yet found he here a home, and glad relief, 
And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf, 
That fired his Highland blood with mickle glee ; 
And England sent her men, of men the chief. 



* Scotland. f The Gaelic appellation for the porpoise. 

J The great whirlpool of the Western Hebrides. 



70 ivroMiNG. 

Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be, 

To plant the tree of life, — to plant fair Freedom's tree ! 



VII. 



Here were not mingled in the city's pomp 
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom ; 
Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp. 
Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature's doom, 
Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb. 
One venerable man, beloved of all. 
Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom. 
To sway the strife that seldom might befall : 
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall. 



VIII. 



How reverend was the look, serenely aged. 
He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire. 
Where all but kindly fervors were assuaged, 
Undimmed by weakness' shade, or turbid ire ! 
And though, amidst the calm of thought entire, 
Some high and haughty features might betray 
A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire 
That fled composure's intellectual ray. 
As i^tna's fires grow dim before the rising day. 



JVrOMING. 



IX. 



71 



I boast no song in magic wonders rife, 

But yet, O Nature ! is there naught to prize, 

FamiHar in thy bosom scenes of life ? 

And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies 

No form with which the soul may sympathize ? 

Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild 

The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise. 

An inmate in the home of Albert smiled. 

Or blessed his noon-day walk — she was his only child. 

X. 

The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek; — 
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire 
A Briton's independence taught to seek 
Far western worlds ; and there his household fire 
The light of social love did long inspire. 
And many a halcyon day he lived to see 
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire. 
When fate had 'reft his mutual heart — but she 
Was gone — and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's 
knee. 

XI. 

A loved bequest, — and I may half impart. 
To them that feel the strong paternal tie. 



72 IVrOMING. 

How like a new existence to his heart 

That living flower uprose beneath his eye, 

Dear as she was from cherub infancy, 

From hours when she would round his garden play. 

To time when as the ripening years went by. 

Her lovely mind could culture well repay, 

And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day. 



XII. 

I may not paint those thousand infant charms ; 
(Unconscious fascination, undesigned !) 
The orison repeated in his arms. 
For God to bless her sire and all mankind ; 
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined. 
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con, 
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind :) 
All uncompanioned else her heart had gone 
Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer 
shone. 



XIII. 

And summer was the tide, and sweet the hour. 
When sire and daughter saw, with fleet descent, 
An Indian from his bark approach their bower, 
Of buskined limb, and swarthy lineament j 



WYOMING. 



73 



The red wild feathers on his brow were blent, 
And bracelets bound the arm that helped to light 
A boy, who seemed, as he beside him went, 
Of Christian vesture, and complexion bright. 
Led by his dusky guide, like morning brought by 
night. 

XIV. 

Yet pensive seemed the boy for one so young — 
The dimple from his pohshed cheek had fled j 
When, leaning on his forest bow unstrung, 
Th' Oneida warrior to the planter said. 
And laid his hand upon the stripling's head : 
" Peace be to thee ! my words this belt approve ; 
The paths of peace my steps have hither led : 
This little nursling, take him to thy love. 
And shield the bird unfledged, since gone the parent 
dove. 

XV. 

" Christian ! I am the foeman of thy foe ; 

Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace : 

Upon the Michigan, three moons ago. 

We launched our pirogues for the bison chase. 

And with the Hurons planted for a space. 

With true and faithful hands, the olive stalk ; 

But snakes are in the bosoms of their race. 



74 frroMiNG. 

And though they held with us a friendly talk, 

The hollow peace-tree fell beneath their tomahawk ! 



XVI. 



It was encamping on the lake's far port, 
A cry of Areouski "^ broke our sleep. 
Where stormed an ambushed foe thy nation's fort, 
And rapid, rapid whoops came o'er the deep ; 
But long thy country's war-sign on the steep 
Appeared through ghastly intervals of light. 
And deathfully their thunder seem'd to sweep. 
Till utter darkness swallowed up the sight. 
As if a shower of blood had quenched the fiery fight ! 



XVII. 

" It slept — it rose again — on high their tower 
Sprang upward like a torch to light the skies. 
Then down again it rained an ember shower, 
And louder lamentations heard we rise ; 
As when the evil Manitou f that dries 
Th' Ohio woods, consumes them in his ire, 
In vain the desolated panther flies. 



The Indian God of War. f Mankou, Spirit or Deity. 



ff'TOMING. 



75 



And howls amidst his wilderness of fire : 
Alas ! too late, we reached and smote those Hurons 
dire ! 

XVIII. 

" But as the fox beneath the nobler hound 



? 



So died their warriors by our battle brand : 
And from the tree we, with her child, unbound 
A lonely mother of the Christian land : — 
Her lord — the captain of the British band — 
Amidst the slaughter of his soldiers lay. 
Scarce knew the widow our delivering hand ; 
Upon her child she sobbed, and swooned away. 
Or shrieked unto the God to whom the Christians 
pray. 

XIX. 

" Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls 
Of fever-balm and sweet sagamite : 
But she was journeying to the land of souls. 
And lifted up her dying head to pray 
That we should bid an ancient friend convey 
Her orphan to his home of England's shore ; — 
And take, she said, this token far away. 
To one that will remember us of yore. 
When he beholds the ring that Waldegrave's Julia 
wore. 



76 IFTOMING. 



XX. 



*^' And I, the eagle of my tribe,* have rushed 

With this lorn dove." — A sage's self-command 

Had quelled the tears from Albert's heart that gushed ; 

But yet his cheek — his agitated hand — 

That showered upon the stranger of the land 

No common boon, in grief but ill beguiled 

A soul that was not wont to be unmanned ; 

" And stay," he cried, " dear pilgrim of the wild. 

Preserver of my old, my boon companion's child ! — 

XXI, 

'' Child of a race whose name my bosom warms 

On earth's remotest bounds, how welcome here ! 

Whose mother oft, a child, has filled these arms, 

Young as thyself, and innocently dear ; 

Whose grandsire was my early life's compeer. 

Ah, happiest home of England's happy clime ! 

How beautiful e'en now thy scenes appear. 

As in the noon and sunshine of my prime ! 

How gone like yesterday these thrice ten years of time ! 



* The Indians are distinguished, both personally and by tribes, by the 
name of particular animals, whose qualities they affect to resemble, either 
for cunning, strength, swiftness, or other qualities : — as the eagle, the ser- 
pent, the fox, or bear. 



IVrOMING. -]■] 



XXII. 
cc 



And, Julia ! when thou wert like Gertrude now, 
Can I forget thee, favorite child of yore ? 
Or thought I, in thy father's house, when thou 
Wert lightest hearted on his festive floor. 
And first of all his hospitable door 
To meet and kiss me at my journey's end ? 
But where was I when Waldegrave was no more ? 
And thou didst, pale, thy gentle head extend 
In woes, that e'en the tribe of deserts was thy friend!" 

XXIII. 

He said — and strained unto his heart the boy : — 
Far differently the mute Oneida took 
His calumet of peace, and cup of joy ;* 
As monumental bronze unchanged his look ; 
A soul that pity touched, but never shook ; 
Trained from his tree-rocked cradle f to his bier 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. 



* Calumet of peace. — The calumet is the Indian name for the orna- 
mental pipe of friendship, which they smoke as a pledge of amity. 

f Tree-rocked cradle. — The Indian mothers suspend their children in 
their cradles from the boughs of trees, and let them be rocked by the 
wind. 



78 



WYOMING. 



XXIV. 



Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock 
Of Outalissi's heart disdained to grow ; • 
As Hves the oak unwithered on the rock 
By storms above, and barrenness below ; 
He scorned his own, who felt another's woe ; 
And ere the wolf-skin on his back he flung. 
Or laced his moccasins, in act to go, 
A song of parting to the boy he sung. 
Who slept on Albert's couch, nor heard his friendly 
tongue. 

XXV. 

" Sleep, wearied one ! and in the dreaming land 

Shouldst thou to-morrow with thy mother meet. 

Oh ! tell her spirit, that the white man's hand 

Hath plucked the thorns of sorrow from thy feet j 

While I in lonely wilderness shall greet 

Thy little footprints — or by traces know 

The fountain, where at noon I thought it sweet 

To feed thee with the quarry of my bow, 

And poured the lotus-horn," or slew the mountain roe. 



* From a flower shaped like a horn, which Chateaubriand presumes to 
be of the lotus kind, the Indians in their travels through the desert ofcen 
find a draught of dew purer than any other water. 



tVrOMING. 



XXVI. 



79 



" Adieu ! sweet scion of the rising sun ! 

But should affliction's storms thy blossom mock, 

Then come again — my own adopted one ! 

And I will graft thee on a noble stock : 

The crocodile, the condor of the rock. 

Shall be the pastime of thy sylvan wars ; 

And I will teach thee, in the battle's shock. 

To pay with Huron blood thy father's scars. 

And gratulate his soul rejoicing in the stars !" 



XXVII. 



So finished he the rhyme (howe'er uncouth) 
That true to nature's fervid feelings ran ; 
(And song is but the eloquence of truth :) 
Then forth uprose that lone wayfaring man ; 
But dauntless he, nor chart, nor journey's plan 
In woods required, whose trained eye was keen 
As eagle of the wilderness, to scan 
His path, by mountain, swamp, or deep ravine. 
Or ken far friendly huts on good savannas green. 



XXVIII. 



Old Albert saw him from the valley's side — 
His pirogue launched — his pilgrimage begun— 



gQ WYOMING, 

Far, like the red-bird's wing, he seemed to glide ; 

Then dived, and vanished in the viroodlands dun. 

Oft, to that spot by tender memory won, 

Would Albert climb the promontory's height. 

If but a dim sail glimmered in the sun -, 

But never more, to bless his longing sight. 

Was Outalissi hailed, with bark and plumage bright. 



WYOMING. Ui 



GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. 



PART II. 
I. 



A VALLEY from the river-shore withdrawn 
Was Albert's home, two quiet woods between, 
Whose lofty verdure overlooked his lawn ; 
And waters to their resting-place serene 
Came freshening, and reflecting all the scene 
(A mirror in the depth of flowery shelves) ; 
So sweet a spot of earth, you might (I ween) 
Have guessed some congregation of the elves. 
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for them- 
selves. 

II. 

Yet wanted not the eye far scope to muse. 
Nor vistas opened by the wandering stream ; 
Both where at evening Alleghany views. 
Through ridges burning in her western beam, 
Lake after lake interminably gleam ; 
6 



82 WrOMING. 

And past those settlers' haunts the eye might roam, 
Where earth's unHving silence all would seem ; 
Save where on rocks the beaver built his dome, 
Or buffalo remote lowed far from human home. 

III. 

But' silent not that adverse eastern path, 
Which saw Aurora's hills th' horizon crown ; 
There was the river heard, in bed of wrath 
(A precipice of foam from mountains brown). 
Like tumults heard from some far-distant town ; 
But softening in approach he left his gloom. 
And murmured pleasantly, and laid him down 
To kiss those easy curving banks of bloom. 
That lent the windward air an exquisite perfume. 

IV. 

It seemed as if those scenes sweet influence had 

On Gertrude's soul, and kindness like their own 

Inspired those eyes affectionate and glad. 

That seemed to love whate'er they looked upon ; 

Whether with Hebe's mirth her features shone. 

Or if a shade more pleasing them o'ercast 

(As if for heavenly musing meant alone), 

Yet so becomingly th' expression passed. 

That each succeeding look was lovelier than the last. 



WYOMING. 83 

V. 

Nor, guess I, was that Pennsylvanlan home, 

With all its picturesque and balmy grace, 

And fields that were a luxury to roam. 

Lost on the soul that look'd from such a face ! 

Enthusiast of the woods ! when years apace 

Had bound thy lovely waist with woman's zone, 

The sunrise path, at morn, I see thee trace 

To hills with high magnolia overgrown. 

And joy to breathe the groves, romantic and alone. 

VI. 

The sunrise drew her thoughts to Europe forth, 

That thus apostrophized its viewless scene : 

" Land of my father's love, my mother's birth ! 

The home of kindred I have never seen ! 

We know not other — oceans are between : 

Yet say ! far friendly hearts from whence we came, 

Of us does oft remembrance intervene ? 

My mother sure — my sire a thought may claim ; 

But Gertrude is to you an unregarded name. 

VII. 

" And yet, loved England ! when thy name I trace 
In many a pilgrim's tale and poet's song. 



84 JVrOMING. 

How can I choose but wish for one embrace 

Of them, the dear unknown, to whom belong 

My mother's looks, — perhaps her likeness strong ? 

Oh, parent ! with what reverential awe. 

From features of thine own related throng. 

An image of thy face my soul could draw ! 

And see thee once again whom I too shortly saw !" 



VIII. 

Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy ; 
To soothe a father's couch her only care. 
And keep his reverend head from all annoy : 
For this, methinks, her homeward steps repair. 
Soon as the morning wreath had bound her hair ; 
While yet the wild deer trod in spangling dew. 
While boatman carolled to the fresh-blown air. 
And woods a horizontal shadow threw, 
And early fox appeared in momentary view.. 



IX. 



Apart there was a deep untrodden grot, 

Where oft the reading hours sweet Gertrude wore j 

Tradition had not named its lonely spot ; 

But here (methinks) might India's sons explore 



IVrOMING. 85 

Their fathers' dust,* or lift perchance of yore, 
Their voice to the great Spirit : — rocks sublime 
To human art a sportive semblance bore, 
And yellow lichens colored all the clime, 
Like moonlight battlements, and towers decayed by 
time. 

X. 

But high in amphitheatre above, 
Gay tinted woods their massy foliage threw : 
Breathed but an air of heaven, and all the grove 
As if instinct with living spirit grew, 
Rolling its verdant gulfs of every hue ; 
And now suspended was the pleasing din. 
Now from a murmur faint it swelled anew. 
Like the first note of organ heard within 
Cathedral aisles, — ere yet its symphony begin. 



XI. 

It was in this lone valley she would charm 

The lingering noon, where flowers a couch had strewn ; 

Her cheek reclining, and her snowy arm 

* It is a custom of the Indian tribes to visit the tombs of their ancestors, 
in the cultivated parts of America, who have been buried for upwards of a 
century. 



86 WYOMING. 

On hillock by the palm-tree half o'ergrown : 
And aye that volume on her lap is thrown, 
Which every heart of human mould endears ; 
With Shakspeare's self she speaks and smiles alone, 
And no intruding visitation fears, 

To shame the unconscious laugh, or stop her sweetest 
tears. 



XII. 

And naught within the grove was seen or heard 

But stock-doves plaining through its gloom profound, 

Or winglet of the fairy humming-bird. 

Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round ; 

When lo ! there entered to its inmost ground 

A youth, the stranger of a distant land ; 

He was, to weet, for eastern mountains bound ; 

But late th' equator suns his cheek had tanned. 

And California's gales his roving bosom fanned. 



XIII. 

A steed, whose rein hung loosely o'er his arm, 
He led dismounted; ere his leisure pace. 
Amid the brown leaves, could her ear alarm, 
Close he had come, and worshipped for a space 
Those downcast features : — she her lovely face 



fFTOMING. 87 

Uplift on one, whose lineaments and frame 
Wore youth and manhood's intermingled grace ; 
Iberian seemed his boot — his robe the same, 
And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became. 

XIV. 

For Albert's home he sought — her finger fair 

Has pointed where the father's mansion stood. 

Returning from the copse, he soon was there : 

And soon has Gertrude hied from dark, green wood ; 

Nor joyless, by the converse, understood 

Between the man of age and pilgrim young. 

That gay congeniality of mood, 

And early liking from acquaintance sprung : 

Full fluently conversed their guest in England's tongue. 

XV. 

And well could he his pilgrimage of taste 

Unfold, — and much they loved his fervid strain. 

While he each fair variety retraced 

Of climes, and manners, o'er the eastern main. 

Now happy Switzer's hills, — romantic Spain, — 

Gay lilied fields of France, — or, more refined, 

The soft Ausonia's monumental reign ; 

Nor less each rural image he designed 

Than all the city's pomp and home of human kind. 



88 V/rOMING. 



XVI. 



Anon some wilder portraiture he draws ; 

Of nature's savage glories he would speak, — 

The loneliness of earth that overawes, — 

Where, resting by some tomb of old cacique. 

The lama-driver on Peruvia's peak 

Nor living voice nor motion marks around ; 

But storks that to the boundless forest shriek, 

Or wild-cane arch high flung o'er gulf profound,* 

That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound. 

XVII. 

Pleased with his guest, the good man still would ply 
Each earnest question, and his converse court 5 
But Gertrude, as she eyed him, knew not why 
A strange and troubling wonder stopped her short. 
'' In England thou hast been, — and, by report. 
An orphan's name (quoth Albert) mayst have known. 
Sad tale ! — when latest fell our frontier fort. 
One innocent — one soldier's child — alone 
Was spared, and brought to me, who loved him as my 
own. — 

* The bridges over narrow streams in many parts of Spanish America 
are said to be built of cane, which, however strong to support the pas- 
senger, are yet waved in the agitation of the storm, and frequently add to 
the effect of a mountainous and picturesque scenery. 



IVYOMING. 89 



XVIII. 



" Young Henry Waldegrave ! three delightful years 

These very walls his infant sports did see : 

But most I loved him when his parting tears 

Alternately bedewed my child and me ; 

His sorest parting, Gertrude, was from thee ; 

Nor half its grief his little heart could hold : 

By kindred he was sent for o'er the sea ; 

They tore him from us when but twelve years old, 

And scarcely for his loss have I been yet consoled !" 



XIX. 



His face the wanderer hid — but could not hide 

A tear, a smile, upon his cheek that dwell ; — 

" And speak ! mysterious stranger !" (Gertrude cried) 

" It is ! — it is ! — I knew — I knew him well ! 

'Tis Waldegrave's self, "of Waldegrave come to tell !" 

A burst of joy the father's lips declare. 

But Gertrude speechless on his bosom fell ; 

At once his open arms embraced the pair, — 

Was never group more blest in this wide world of care. 

XX. 

" And will ye pardon then (replied the youth) 
Your Waldegrave's feigned name, and false attire ? 



90 IVrOMING. 

I durst not In the neighborhood, in truth, 

The very fortunes of your house inquire. 

Lest one that knew me might some tidings dire 

Impart, and I my weakness all betray ; 

For had I lost my Gertrude and my sire, 

I meant but o'er your tombs to weep a day : 

Unknown I meant to weep, unknown to pass away. 

XXI. 

" But here ye live, — ye bloom, — in each dear face. 
The changing hand of time I may not blame ; 
For there, it hath but shed more reverend grace. 
And here, of beauty perfected the frame : 
And well I know your hearts are still the same — 
They could not change — ye look the very way 
As when an orphan first to you I came. 
And have ye heard of my poor guide, I pray ? 
Nay, wherefore weep ye, friends, on such a joyous 
day ?" 

XXII. 

" And art thou here ? or is it but a dream ? 
And wilt thou, Waldegrave, wilt thou leave us more ?'* — 
" No, never ! thou that yet dost lovelier seem 
Than aught on earth — than e'en thyself of yore — 
1 will not part thee from thy father's shore ; 



WYOMING. 91 

But we will cherish him with mutual arms, 
And hand in hand again the path explore, 
Which every ray of young remembrance warms, 
While thou shalt be my own, with all thy truth and 
charms !" 

XXIII. 

At morn, as if beneath a galaxy 
Of over-arching groves in blossoms white, 
Where all was odorous scent and harmony. 
And gladness to the heart, nerve, ear, and sight ; 
There, if, oh gentle Love ! I read aright 
The utterance that sealed thy sacred bond, 
*Twas listening to these accents of delight. 
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond 
Expression's power to paint, all languishingly fond. 

XXIV. 

" Flower of my life, so lovely, and so lone ! 

Whom I would rather in this desert meet. 

Scorning and scorn'd by fortune's power, than own 

Her pomp and splendors lavished at my feet ! 

Turn not from me thy breath, more exquisite 

Than odors cast on heaven's own shrine — to please — 

Give me thy love, than luxury more sweet. 

And more than all the wealth that loads the breeze, . 

When Coromandel's ships return from Indian seas." 



92 WYOMING. 

XXV. 

Then would that home admit them — happier far 

Than grandeur's most magnificent saloon, 

While, here and there, a solitary star 

Flushed in the darkening firmament of June ; 

And silence brought the soul-felt hour, full soon, 

Ineffable, which I may not portray ; 

For never did the hymenean moon 

A paradise of hearts more sacred sway. 

In all that slept beneath her soft voluptuous ray. 



WYOMING. 93 



GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. 



PART III. 
I. 

O Love ! in such a wilderness as this, 

Where transport and security entwine, 

Here is the empire of thy perfect bUss, 

And here thou art a god indeed divine. 

Here shall no forms abridge, no hours confine 

The views, the walks, that boundless joy inspire ! 

Roll on, ye days of raptured influence, shine ! 

Nor, blind with ecstasy's celestial fire. 

Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire. 

Three little moons, how short ! amidst the grove 

And pastoral savannas they consume ! 

While she, beside her buskined youth to rove. 

Delights in fancifully wild costume, 

Her lovely brow to shade with Indian plume ; 



94 fFTOMING. 

And forth in hunter-seeming vest they fare ; 
But not to chase the deer in forest gloom ; 
'Tis but the breath of heaven — the blessed air — 
And interchange of hearts unknown, unseen to share. 

III. 

What though the sportive dog oft round them note, 
Or fawn, or wild bird bursting on the wing ; 
Yet who, in love's own presence, would devote 
To death those gentle throats that wake the spring. 
Or writhing from the brook its victim bring ? 
No ! — nor let fear one little warbler rouse ; 
But, fed by Gertrude's hand, still let them sing, 
Acquaintance of her path, amidst the boughs, 
That shade e'en now her love, and witnessed first her 
vows. 

IV. 

Now labyrinths, which but themselves can pierce, 
Methinks, conduct them to some pleasant ground. 
Where welcome hills shut out the universe. 
And pines their lawny walk encompass round ; 
There, if a pause delicious converse found, 
'Twas but when o'er each heart the idea stole 
(Perchance awhile in joy's oblivion drowned). 
That come what may, while life's glad pulses roll, 
Indissolubly thus should soul be knit to soul. 



irroMiNG. 95 



V. 



And in the visions of romantic youth, 
What years of endless bliss are yet to flow ! 
But, mortal pleasure, what art thou in truth ? 
The torrent's smoothness, ere it dash below ! 
And must I change my song ? and must I show. 
Sweet Wyoming ! the day when thou wert doomed. 
Guiltless, to mourn thy loveliest bowers laid low ? 
When where of yesterday a garden bloomed. 
Death overspread his pall, and blackening ashes 
gloomed ! 



VI. 

Sad was the year, by proud oppression driven. 

When Transatlantic Liberty arose. 

Not in the sunshine and the smile of heaven. 

But wrapt in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes, 

Amidst the strife of fratricidal foes ; 

Her birth-star was the light of burning plains ;* 

Her baptism is the weight of blood that flows 

From kindred hearts — the blood of British veins — 

And famine tracks her steps, and pestilential pains. 



* Alluding to the miseries that attended the American civil war. 



96 JVrOMING. 

VII. 

Yet, ere the storm of death had raged remote, 
Or siege unseen in heaven reflects its beams, 
Who now each dreadful circumstance shall note. 
That fills pale Gertrude's thoughts, and nightly dreams r 
Dismal to her the forge of battle gleams 
Portentous light ! and music's voice is dumb ; 
Save where the fife its shrill reveille screams, 
Or midnight streets re-echo to the drum, 
That speaks of maddening strife, and blood-stained fields 
to come. 

VIII. 

It was in truth a momentary pang ; 

Yet how comprising myriad shapes of woe ! 

First when in Gertrude's ear the summons rang, 

A husband to the battle doomed to go ! 

" Nay, meet not thou (she cries) thy kindred foe, 

But peaceful let us seek fair England's strand !" 

" Ah, Gertrude ! thy beloved heart, I know. 

Would feel like mine the stigmatizing brand. 

Could I forsake the cause of Freedom's holy band ! 

IX. 

" But shame — but flight — a recreant's name to prove, 
To hide in exile ignominious fears ; 



WYOMING. 



97 



Say, e'en if this I brooked — the public love 
Thy father's bosom to his home endears : 
And how could I his few remaining years, 
My Gertrude, sever from so dear a child ?" 
So, day by day, her boding heart he cheers : 
At last that heart to hope is half beguiled. 
And, pale through tears suppressed, the mournful beauty 
smiled. 

X. 

Night came — and in their lighted bower, full late, 

The joy of converse had endured — when, hark ! 

Abrupt and loud a summons shook their gate ; 

And, heedless of the dog's obstreperous bark, 

A form had rushed amidst them from the dark. 

And spread his arms — and fell upon the floor : 

Of aged strength his limbs retained the mark ; 

But desolate he looked, and famished, poor. 

As ever shipwrecked wretch lone left on desert shore. 



XI. 

Uprisen, each wondering brow is knit and arched : 
A spirit from the dead they deem him first : 
To speak he tries ; but quivering, pale, and parched, 
From lips, as by some powerless dream accursed, 

Emotions unintelligible burst ; 

7 



98 jrrOMING. 

And long his filmed eye is red and dim ; 
At length the pity-proffered cup his thirst 
Had half assuaged, and nerved his shuddering limb, 
When Albert's hand he grasped j — but Albert knew not 
him. 

XII. 

"And hast thou then forgot" (he cried, forlorn, 
And eyed the group with half-indignant air), 
" Oh ! hast thou, Christian chief, forgot the morn 
When I with thee the cup of peace did share ? 
Then stately was this head, and dark this hair. 
That now is white as Appalachia's snow ; 
But, if the weight of fifteen years' despair 
And age hath bowed me, and the torturing foe. 
Bring me my boy — and he will his deliverer know !'* 



XIII. 

It was not long, with eyes and heart of flame. 

Ere Henry to his loved Oneida flew : 

" Bless thee, my guide !" — but backward, as he came. 

The chief his old bewildered head withdrew. 

And grasped his arm, and looked and looked him 

through. 
'Twas strange — nor could the group a smile control — 
The long, the doubtful scrutiny to view : — 



IFTOMING. 



99 



At last delight o'er all his features stole, 
" It is — my own/' he cried, and clasped him to his 
soul. 

XIV. 

" Yes ! thou recall'st my pride of years, for then 
The bowstring of my spirit was not slack, 
When, spite of woods, and floods, and ambushed men, 
I bore thee like the quiver on my back, 
Fleet as the whirlwind hurries on the rack ; 
Nor foeman then, nor cougar's crouch I feared,* 
For I was strong as mountain cataract : 
And dost thou not remember how we cheered 
Upon the last hill-top, when white men's huts ap- 
peared ? 

XV. 

" Then welcome be my death-song, and my death. 

Since I have seen thee, and again embraced." 

And longer had he spent his toil-worn breath. 

But, with affectionate and eager haste. 

Was every arm outstretched around their guest. 

To welcome and to bless his aged head. 

Soon was the hospitable banquet placed ; 



* Cougar, the American tiger. 



100 fVrOMING. 

And Gertrude's lovely hands a balsam shed 

On wounds with fevered joy that more profusely bled. 

XVI. 

" But this Is not a time/' — he started up, 

And smote his breast with woe-denouncing hand — 

" This is no time to fill the joyous cup ; 

The Mammoth comes, — the foe, — the Monster 

Brant,* — 
With all his howling desolating band ; — 
These eyes have seen their blade and burning pine 
Awake at once, and silence half your land. 
Red is the cup they drink ; but not with wine : 
Awake, and watch to-night, or see no morning shine ! 

XVII. 

" Scorning to wield the hatchet for his bribe, 

'Gainst Brant himself I went to battle forth : 

Accurse,d Brant ! he left of all my tribe 

Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth : 

No ! not the dog, that watched my household hearth, 

Escaped that night of blood, upon our plains ! 

All perished ! — I alone am left on earth ! 



* Brant was the leader of those Mohawks, and other savages, who laid 
waste this part of Pennsylvania. Vide the note at the end of this poem. 



WYOMING. 



lOI 



To whom nor relative nor blood remains ; 

No ! — not a kindred drop that runs in human veins ! 



XVIII. 

" But go ! — and rouse your warriors ; — for, if right 

These old bewildered eyes could guess, by signs 

Of striped and starred banners, on yon height 

Of eastern cedars, o'er the creek of pines — 

Some fort embattled by your country shines : 

Deep roars the innavigable gulf below 

Its squared rocks, and palisaded lines. 

Go ! seek the light its warlike beacons show ; 

Whilst I in ambush wait, for vengeance and the foe !" 

XIX. 

Scarce had he uttered — when heaven's verge extreme 

Reverberates the bomb's descending star, — 

And sounds that mingled laugh, — and shout, — and 

scream, — 
To freeze the blood, in one discordant jar. 
Rung to the pealing thunderbolts of war. 
Whoop after whoop with rack the ear assailed ! 
As if unearthly fiends had burst their bar ; 
While rapidly the marksman's shot prevailed : — 
And aye, as if for death, some lonely trumpet wailed. 



102 WYOMING. 

XX. 

Then looked they to the hills, where fire o'erhung 
The bandit groups, in one Vesuvian glare ; 
Or swept, far seen, the tower, whose clock unrung, 
Told legible that midnight of despair. 
She faints, — she falters not, — the heroic fair, — 
As he the sword and plume in haste arrayed. 
One short embrace — he clasped his dearest care — 
But hark ! what nearer war-drum shakes the glade ? 
Joy, joy ! Columbia's friends are tramping through the 
shade ! 

XXI. 

Then came of every race the mingled swarm. 

Far rung the groves, and gleamed the midnight grass, 

With flambeau, javelin, and naked arm \ 

As warriors wheeled their culverins of brass. 

Sprung from the woods, a bold athletic mass. 

Whom virtue fires, and liberty combines : 

And first the wild Moravian yagers pass ; 

His plumed host the dark Iberian joins — 

And Scotia's sword beneath the Highland thistle shines. 

XXII. 

And in, the buskined hunters of the deer. 

To Albert's home, with shout and cymbal throng : 



tVrOMING. 



103 



Roused by their warlike pomp, and mirth, and cheer, 

Old Outalissi woke his battle-song. 

And, beating with his war-club cadence strong, 

Tells how his deep-stung indignation smarts. 

Of them that wrapt his house in flames, ere long 

To whet a dagger on their stony hearts. 

And smile avenged ere yet his eagle spirit parts. 

XXIII. 

Calm, opposite the Christian father rose, 

Pale on his venerable brow its rays 

Of martyr light the conflagration throws j 

One hand upon his lovely child he lays. 

And one the uncovered crowd to silence sways ; 

While, though the battle flash is faster driven, — 

Unawed, with eye unstartled by the blaze. 

He for his bleeding country prays to Heaven — 

Prays that the men of blood themselves may be forgiven. 

XXIV. 

Short time Is now for gratulating speech : 

And yet, beloved Gertrude, ere began 

Thy country's flight, yon distant towers to reach, 

Looked not on thee the rudest partisan 

With brow relaxed to love ? And murmurs ran. 

As round and round their willing ranks they drew, 



104 



WYOMING. 



From beauty's sight to shield the hostile van. 

Grateful, on them a placid look she threw, 

Nor wept, but as she bade her mother's grave adieu ! 



XXV. 

Past was the flight, and welcome seemed the tower. 

That like a giant standard-bearer frowned 

Defiance on the roving Indian power. 

Beneath, each bold and promontory mound 

With embrasure embossed, and armor crowned. 

An arrowy frieze, and wedged ravelin. 

Wove like a diadem its tracery round 

The lofty summit of that mountain green ; 

Here stood secure the group, and eyed a distant scene, — 

XXVI. 

A scene of death ! where fires beneath the sun, 
And blended arms, and white pavilions glow ; 
And for the business of destruction done. 
Its requiem the war-horn seemed to blow : 
There, sad spectatress of her country's woe ! 
The lovely Gertrude, safe from present harm. 
Had laid her cheek, and clasped her hands of snow 
On Waldegrave's shoulder, half within his arm 
Enclosed, that felt her heart, and hushed its wild alarm ! 



WYOMING . 105 

XXVII. 

But short that contemplation — sad and short 
The pause to bid each much-loved scene adieu ! 
Beneath the very shadow of the fort, 
Where friendly swords were drawn, and banners flew. 
Ah ! who could deem that foot of Indian crew 
Was near ? — yet there, with lust of murderous deeds, 
Gleamed like a basilisk, from woods in view, 
The ambushed foeman's eye — his volley speeds. 
And Albert — Albert falls ! the dear old father bleeds ! 

XXVIII. 

And tranced in giddy horror, Gertrude swooned ; 
Yet, while she clasps him lifeless to her zone, 
Say, burst they, borrowed from her father's wound. 
These drops ? — Oh God ! the life-blood is her own ! 
And faltering, on her Waldegrave's bosom thrown, 
" Weep not, O love !" — she cries, " to see me bleed — 
Thee, Gertrude's sad survivor, thee alone 
Heaven's peace commiserate ; for scarce I heed 
These wounds ; — yet thee to leave Is death, is death 
indeed ! 

XXIX. 

" Clasp me a little longer, on the brink 
Of fate ! while I can feel thy dear caress ; 



I06 WYOMING, 

And when this heart hath ceased to beat — oh think, 

And let it mitigate thy woe's excess, 

That thou hast been to me all tenderness, 

And friend to more than human friendship just. 

Oh ! by that retrospect of happiness. 

And by the hopes of an immortal trust, 

God shall assuage thy pangs when I am laid in dust ! 

XXX. 

"Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart ; 

The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move, 

Where my dear father took thee to his heart. 

And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove 

With thee, as with an angel, through the grove 

Of peace, imagining her lot was cast 

In heaven ; for ours was not like earthly love. 

And must this parting be our very last ? 

No ! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past. 

XXXI. 

" Half could I bear, methinks, to leave this earth. 
And thee, more loved than aught beneath the sun. 
If I had lived to smile but on the birth 
Of one dear pledge -, — but shall there then be none, 
In future times — no gentle little one. 



frroMiNG. 107 

To clasp thy neck, and look, resembling me ? 
Yet seems it, e'en while life's last pulses run, 
A sweetness in the cup of death to be. 
Lord of my bosom's love ! to die beholding thee !" 

XXXII. 

Hushed were his Gertrude's lips ! but still their bland 
And beautiful expression seemed to m.elt 
With love that could not die ! and still his hand 
She presses to the heart no more that felt. 
Ah, heart ! where once each fond affection dwelt, 
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair. 
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt, — 
Of them that stood encircling his despair, 
He heard some friendly words ; — but knew not what 
they were. 

XXXIIl. 

For now, to mourn their judge and child, arrives 
A faithful band. With solemn rites between, 
'Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives, 
And in their deaths had not divided been. 
Touched bv the music, and the melting scene. 
Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd : — 
Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen 
To veil their eyes, as passed each much-loved shroud — • 
While woman's softer soul in woe dissolved aloud. 



I08 WrOMING. 

XXXIV. 

Then mournfully the parting bugle bid 

Its farewell o'er the grave of worth and truth ; 

Prone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrav^e hid 

His face on earth ; — him watched, in gloomy ruth, 

His woodland guide : but words had none to soothe 

The grief that knew not consolation's name : 

Casting his Indian mantle o'er the youth. 

He watched, beneath its folds, each burst that came 

Convulsive, ague-like, across his shuddering frame ! 

XXXV. 

"And I could weep ;" — th' Oneida chief 

His descant wildly thus begun : 

" But that I may not stain with grief 

The death-song of my father's son, 

Or bow this head in woe ! 

For by my wrongs, and by my wrath ! 

To-morrow Areouski's breath 

(That fires yon heaven with storms of death) 

Shall light us to the foe ; 

And we shall share, my Christian boy ! 

The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy ! 

XXXVI. 

" But thee, my flower, whose breath was given 
By milder genii o'er the deep. 



WYOMING. loq 



The spirits of the white man's heaven 
Forbid not thee to weep : — 
Nor will the Christian host, 
Nor will thy father's spirit grieve, 
To see thee, on the battle's eve. 
Lamenting, take a mournful leave 
Of her who loved thee most : 
She was the rainbow to thy sight ! 
Thy sun — thy heaven — of lost delight ! 

XXXVII. 

" To-morrow let us do or die ! 

But when the bolt of death is hurled, 

Ah ! whither then with thee to fly, 

Shall Outalissi roam the world ? 

Seek we thy once-loved home ? 

The hand is gone that cropped its flowers : 

Unheard their clock repeats its hours ! 

Cold is the hearth within their bowers ! 

And should we thither roam, 

Its echoes, and its empty tread. 

Would sound like voices from the dead ! 

XXXVIII. 

"Or shall we cross yon mountains blue. 
Whose -streams my kindred nation quaffed, 



no frroMiNG. 

And by my side, in battle true, 

A thousand warriors drew the shaft ? 

Ah ! there in desolation cold. 

The desert serpent dwells alone, 

Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering bone, 

And stones themselves to ruin grown, 

Like me, are death-like old. 

Then seek we not their camp, — for there 

The silence dwells of my despair ! 

XXXIX. 

" But hark, the trump ! — to-morrow thou 
In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears : 
E'en from the land of shadows now 
My father's awful ghost appears. 
Amidst the clouds that round us roll I 
He bids my soul for battle thirst — 
He bids me dry the last — the first — 
The only tears that ever burst 
From Outalissi's soul ; 
Because I may not stain with grief 
The death-song of an Indian chief!" 



irroMiNG. Ill 



WYOMING.* 

BY FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 

" DItes si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie^ pour une 
Claire, et pour un St. Preux, mais ne les y cherchez pas." 

Rousseau. 

I. 

Thou com'st, in beauty, on my gaze at last, 
" On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming !" 
Image of many a dream, in hours long past, 
When life was in its bud and blossoming. 
And waters, gushing from the fountain spring 
Of pure enthusiast thought, dimmed my young eyes, 
As by the poet borne, on unseen wing, 
I breathed, in fancy, 'neath thy cloudless skies. 
The summer's air, and heard her echoed harmonies. 

II. 

I then but dreamed : thou art before me now, 
In life, a vision of the brain no more. 



* The allusion in the following stanzas can be understood by these onlv 
who have read Campbell's beautiful poem, " G: rtruds of W\om kg :" 
but who has not read it ? 



112 IVrOMING. 

Pve stood upon the wooded mountain's brow, 
That beetles high thy lovely valley o'er ; 
And now, where winds thy river's greenest shore. 
Within a bower of sycamores am laid ; 
And winds, as soft and sweet as ever bore 
The fragrance of wild flowers through sun and shade. 
Are singing in the trees, whose low boughs press my 
head. 

III. 

Nature hath made thee lovelier than the power 
Even of Campbell's pen hath pictured : he 
Had woven, had he gazed one sunny hour 
Upon thy smiling vale, its scenery 
With more of truth, and made each rock and tree 
Known like old friends, and greeted from afar :" 
And there are tales of sad reality, 
In the dark legends of thy border war. 
With woes of deeper tint than his own Gertrude's are. 

IV. 

But where are they, the beings of the mind. 
The bard's creations, moulded not of clay. 
Hearts to strange bliss and suffering assigned — 
Young Gertrude, Albert, Waldegrave — where are 
they ? 



WYOMING. 



113 



We need not ask. The people of to-day 
Appear good, honest, quiet men enough, 
And hospitable too — for ready pay ; 
With manners hke their roads, a little rough. 
And hands whose grasp is warm and welcoming, though 
tough. 



:.3 jr- 



Judge * * >!=^ ^}^Q keeps the toll-bridge gate, 
And the town records, is the Albert no# 
Of Wyoming : like him, in chur<?Ji and state. 
Her Doric column ; and upon his bfO;\y • 
The thin hairs, white with seventy ^inters' snow, 
Look patriarchal. Waldegrave 'twere in vain 
To point out here, unless in yon scare-crow. 
That stands full-uniformed upon the plain. 
To frighten flocks of crows and blackbirds from the 
grain. 

VI. 

For he would look particularly droll 
In his " Iberian boot " and " Spanish plume," 
And be the wonder of each Christian soul,. 
As of the birds that scare-crow and his broom. 
But Gertrude, in her loveliness and bloom. 
Hath many a model here ; for woman's eye, 
8 



114 WYOMING. 

In court or cottage, wheresoe'er her home, 
Hath a heart-spell too holy and too liigh 
To be o'erpraised even by her worshipper — Poesy. 



VII. 

There's one in the next field — of sweet sixteen — 
Singing and summoning thoughts of beauty born 
In heaven — with her jacket of light green, 
" Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn," 
Without a shoe or stocking — hoeing corn. 
Whether, like Gertrude, she oft wanders there, 
With Shakspeare's volume in her bosom borne, 
I think is doubtful. Of the poet-player 
The maiden knows no more than Cobbett or Voltaire. 



VIII. 

There Is a woman, widowed, gray, and old. 
Who tells you where the foot of Battle stepped 
Upon their day of massacre. She told 
Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept. 
Whereon her father and five brothers slept 
Shroudless, the bright-dreamed slumbers of the brave. 
When all the land a funeral mourning kept. 
And there, wild laurels planted on the grave 
By Nature's hand, in air their pale red blossoms wave. 



JVrOMING. 115 

IX. 

And on the margin of yon orchard hill 
Are marks where time-worn battlements have been, 
And in the tall grass traces linger still 
Of " arrowy frieze and wedged ravelin." 
Five hundred of her brave that valley green 
Trod on the morn in soldier-spirit gay ; 
- But twenty lived to tell the noonday scene — 

And where are now the twenty ? Passed away. 
Has Death no triumph-hours, save on the battle-day r 



ii6 frroMiNG. 



LOCAL POETRY. 



WYOA4ING MASSACRE. 



1. Kind Heaven, assist the trembling muse, 

While she attempts to tell 
Of poor Wyoming's overthrow, 
By savage sons of hell. 

2. One hundred whites, in painted hue 

Whom Butler there did lead. 
Supported by a barb'rous crew 
Of the fierce savage breed. 

3. The last of June the siege began. 

And several days it held. 
While many a brave and valiant man 
Lay slaughtered on the field. 

4. Our troops marched out from Forty Fort, 

The third day of July, 
Three hundred strong, they march along. 
The fate of war to try. 



WYOMING. 117 

5. But oh ! alas ! three hundred men 

Is much too small a band, 
To meet eight hundred men complete, 
And make a glorious stand. 

6. Four miles they marched from the Fort 

Their enemy to meet, 
Too far indeed did Butler lead, 
To keep a safe retreat. 

7. And now the fatal hour is come — 

They bravely charge the foe. 
And they with ire, returned the fire, 
Which proved our overthrow. 

8. Some minutes they sustained the fire, 

But ere they were aware 
They were encompassed all around, 
Which proved a fatal snare. 

9. And then they did attempt to fly, 

But all was now in vain ; 
Their little host — by far the most — 
Was by those Indians slain. 

10. And as they fly, for quarters cry ; 
Oh hear ! indulgent Heaven ! 



Il8 F/rOMING. 

Hard to relate — their dreadful fate, 
No quarters must be given. 

11. With bitter cries and mournful sighs 

They seek some safe retreat, 
Run here and there, they know not where, 
Till awful death they meet. 

12. Their piercing cries salute the skies — 

Mercy is all their cry : 
" Our souls prepare God's grace to share. 
We instantly must die." 

13. Some men yet found are flying round 

Sagacious to get clear ; 
In vain to fly, their foes too nigh I 
They front the flank and rear. 

14. And now the foe hath won the day, 

Methinks their words are these : 
" Ye cursed, rebel, Yankee race. 
Will this your Congress please ?" 

15. "Your pardons crave, you them shall have, 

- Behold them in our hands ; 
We'll all agree to set you free. 
By dashing out your brains. 



WYOMING. 

1 6. " And as for you, enlisted crew, 

We'll raise your honors higher : 
Pray turn your eye, where you must lie, 
In yonder burning fire." 

17. Then naked in those flames they're cast, 

Too dreadful 'tis to tell. 
Where they must fry, and burn and die, 
While cursed Indians yell. 

18. Nor son, nor sire, these tigers spare, — 

The youth, and hoary head. 
Were by those monsters murdered there, 
And numbered with the dead. 

19. Methinks I hear some sprightly youth, 

His mournful state condole : 
" O, that my tender parents knew 
The anguish of my soul ! 

20. " But O ! there's none to save my life, 

Or heed my dreadful fear ; 
I see the tomahawk and knife, 
And the more glittering spear. 

21. " When years ago, I dandled was 

Upon my parents' knees, 



119 



120 IfYOMII^G. 

I little thought I should be brought 
To feel such pangs as these. 

22. " I hoped for many a joyful day, 

I hoped for riches' store — 
These golden dreams are fled away ; 
I straight shall be no more. 

23. " Farewell, fond mother ; late I was 

Locked up in your embrace ; 
Your heart would ache, and even break, 
If you could know my case. 

24. " Farewell, indulgent parents dear, 

I must resign my breath ; 
I now must die, and here must lie 
In the cold arms of death. 

25. " For O ! the fatal hour is come, 

I see the bloody knife — 
The Lord have mercy on my soul !" 
And quick resigned his life. 

26. A doleful theme ; yet, pensive muse. 

Pursue the doleful theme : 
It is no fancy to delude. 
Nor transitory dream. 



Jf^rOMING. 



121 



27. The Forty Fort was the resort 

For mother and for child, 
To save them from the cruel rage 
Of the fierce savage wild. 

28. "Now, when the news of this defeat 

Had sounded in our ears, 
You well may know our dreadful woe, 
And our foreboding fears. 

29. A doleful sound is whispered round. 

The sun now hides his head ; 
The nightly gloom forebodes our doom, 
We all shall soon be dead. 

30. How can we bear the dreadful spear. 

The tomahawk and knife ? 
And if we run, the awful gun 
Will rob us of our life. 

31. But Heaven ! kind Heaven, propitious power ! 

His hand we must adore j 
He did assuage the savage rage. 
That they should kill no more. 



32. The gloomy night now gone and past, 
The sun returns again. 



122 JVrOMING. 

The little birds from every bush 
Seem to lament the slain. 

33. With aching hearts and trembling hands 
We walked here and there, 
Till through the northern pines we saw 
A flag approaching near. 

■ 34. Some men were chose to meet this flag, 
Our colonel was the chief, 
Who soon returned, and in his mouth 
He brought an olive leaf. 

35. This olive leaf was granted life. 

But then we must no more 
Pretend to fight with Britain's king, 
Until the wars are o'er. 

36. And now poor Westmoreland is lost, 

Our forts are all resigned. 
Our buildings they are all on fire — 
What shelter can we find ? 

37. They did agree in black and white. 

If we'd lay down our arms. 
That all who pleased might quietly 
Remain upon their farms. 



WYOMING. 

38. But O ! they've robbed us of our all, 

They've taken all but life, 
And we'll rejoice and bless the Lord, 
If this may end the strife. 

39. And now I've told my mournful tale, 

I hope you'll all agree, 
To help our cause and break the jaws 
Of cruel tyranny. 



123 



124 WYOMING. 



"WARRIORS OF WYOMING. 



" O ! HAUGHTY was the hour, 
The hum, the brave array. 
When sallied forth Wyoming's power. 
Upon the battle day. 

" But soon, when hemmed by sudden foes. 
They gathered round to fight and die, 
O ! horrid was the shout that rose, 
And long and deep the dying cry. 

" Fierce was the fight of strong despair, 
And fierce the savage yell. 
And dreadful was the carnage where 
The warriors of Wyoming fell. 

" No shouting of victorious pride 

Deceived the brave man's dying breath, 
But murder raged on every side, 

And heavy blows, and blood and death. 

" O, gloomy was the day, 

When. the widowed mother heard 



r/roMiNG. 125 

The roar of battle die away, 

And no returning band appeared. 

'*• No more their burning hamlets gleam 
Along the narrow heath, 
Nor, stretching o'er the midnight stream. 
Reflect the fire of death. 

" No more their little fort around. 

The warriors of Wyoming throng. 
They sleep beneath the frozen ground, 
Where the wind howls loud and long. 



cc 



And there the pausing traveller finds 

No grave-stone rising nigh. 
Where the tall grass bends, and the hollow winds 

May eddy round and sigh. 



" O, when shall their silent home 
Its mournful glory gain ! 
The volleyed roar and muffled drum. 
In honor of the warrior slain ? 

".O, when shall rise, with chiselled head, 
The tall stone o'er their burial-place, 
Where the winds may sigh for the gallant dead. 
And the dry grass rustle round its base ?" 



126 INDIAN ELOQUENCE, 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 



A FEW suns more, and the Indian will live only in 
history. A i^w centuries, and that history will be 
colored with the mellow, romantic light in which Time 
robes the past, and, contrasted with the then present 
wealth and splendor of America, may seem so impro- 
bable, as to elicit from the historian a philosophic doubt 
of its authenticity. The period may even arrive, when 
the same uncertainty which hangs over the heroic days 
of every people may attend its records, and the stirring 
deeds of the battle-field and council-fire may be re- 
garded as attractive fictions, or at the best as beautiful 
exaggerations. 

This is but in the nature of things. Actions always 
lose their reality and distinctness in the perspective of 
ages ; time is their charnel-house. And no memorials 
are so likely to be lost or forgotten, as those of a 
conquered nation. Of the Angles and Saxons little 
more than a name has survived, and the Indian mav 
meet no better fate. Even though our own history is 
so enveloped in theirs, it is somewhat to be feared that. 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 127 

from neglect, the valuable cover vi^ill be suffered to 
decay, and care be bestowed only on the more precious 
contents. " Be It. so," exclaim some ; " u^hat pleasure 
or profit is to be derived from the remembrance ? 
Let the wild legend be forgotten. They are but exhi- 
bitions of savage life, teeming with disgusting excess 
and brutal passion. They portray man in no interest- 
ing light, for, with every redeeming trait, there rises up 
some revolting characteristic in horrid contrast. Was 
he grateful ?-— So was his revenge bloody and eternal. 
Was he brave ? — So was he treacherous. Was he 
generous ? — So was he crafty and cruel." 

But a more philosophic mind would say, " No ! he 
presents a part of the panorama of humanity, and his 
extermination is an embodiment of a great principle — 
the same retreat of the children of the wilderness 
before the wave of civilization ; hence arises a deep 
interest in his fortune, which should induce us to pre- 
serve, carefully and faithfully, the most trifling record 
of his greatness or his degradation." At a time when 
barbarous nations elsewhere had lost their primitive 
purity, we find him the only true child of nature — the 
best specimen of man in his native simplicity. We 
should remember him as a " study of human nature " — 
as an instance of a strange mixture of good and evil 
passions. We perceive in him fine emotions of feeling 
and delicacy, and unrestrained, systematic cruelty. 



128 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

grandeur of spirit and hypocritical cunning, genuine 
courage and fiendish treachery. He was hke some 
beautiful spar, part of which is regular, clear, and 
sparkling, while a portion, impregnated with clay, is 
dark and forbidding. 

But above all, as being an engrossing subject to an 
American, as coming to us the only relic of the liter- 
ature of the aborigines, and the most perfect emblem 
of their character, their glory, and their intellect, we 
should dearly cherish the remains of their oratory. In 
these we see developed the motives which animated 
their actions, and the light and shadows of their very 
soul. The iron encasement of apparent apathy in 
which the savage had fortified himself, impenetrable at 
ordinary moments, is laid aside in the council-room. 
The genius of eloquence bursts the swathing-bands of 
custom, and the Indian stands forth accessible, natural, 
and legible. We commune with him, listen to his 
complaints, understand, appreciate, and even feel his 
injuries. 

As Indian eloquence is a key to the character, so is 
it a noble monument of their literature. Oratory 
seldom finds a more auspicious field. A wild people, 
and region of thought, forbade feebleness ; uncultivated, 
but intelligent and sensitive, a purity of idea, chastely 
combined with energy of expression, ready fluency, 
and imagery now exquisitely delicate, now soaring to 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 129 

the sublime, all united to rival the efforts of any ancient 
or modern orator.* 

What can be imagined more impressive, than a war- 
rior risino; in the council-room to address those who 
bore the same scarred marks of their title to fame and 
to chieftainship ? The dignified stature — the easy 
repose of limbs — the graceful gesture, the dark speak- 
ing eye, excite equal admiration and expectation. We 
would anticipate eloquence from an Indian. He has 
animating remembrances — a poverty of language, which 
exacts rich and apposite metaphorical allusions, even 
for ordinary conversation — a mind which, like his body, 
has never been trammelled and mechanized by the for- 
malities of society, and passions which, from the very 
outward restraint imposed upon them, burn more 
fiercely within. There is a mine of truth in the reply 
of Red Jacket, when called a warrior : " A warrior /" 
said he ; "I am an orator — I was born an orator." 

There are not many speeches remaining on record, 
but even in this small number there is such a rich yet 
varied vein of all the characteristics of true eloquence, 
that we even rise from their perusal with regret that so 
few have been preserved. No where can be found a 
poetic thought clothed in more captivating simplicity of 



* An unqualified opinion to this effect has been expressed by Jkffek- 
soN and Clinton. 
9 



130 . INDIAN ELOQUENCE, 

expression, than in the answer of Tecumseh to Gover- 
nor Harrison, in the conference at Vincennes. It con- 
tains a high moral rebuke, and a sarcasm heightened in 
effect by an evident consciousness of loftiness above 
the reach of insult. At the close of his address, he 
found that no chair had been placed for him, a neglect 
which Governor Harrison ordered to be remedied as 
soon as discovered. Suspecting, perhaps, that it was 
more an affront than a mistake, with an air of dignity 
elevated almost to haughtiness, he declined the seat 
proffered, with the words, " Your father requests you 
to take a chair," and answered, as he calmly disposed 
himself on the ground : " My father ? The sun is my 
father, and the earth is my mother. / will repose upon 
her bosom.'' 

As they excelled in the beautiful, so also they pos- 
sessed a nice sense of the ridiculous. There is a 
clever strain of irony, united with the sharpest taunt, 
in the speech of Garangula to De la Barre, the Gover- 
nor of Canada, when that crafty Frenchman met with 
his tribe in council, for the purpose of obtaining peace, 
and reparation for past injuries. The European, a 
faithful believer in the maxim, that " £« guerre^ ou la 
peau du lion ne pent suffire^ H y faut coudre un lop'in de celle 
du renard^' attempted to overawe the savage by 
threats, which he well knew he had no power to 
execute. Garangula, who also was well aware of his 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 131 

weakness, replied, " Yonondio, you must have believed, 
when you left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all 
the forests which render our country inaccessible to the 
French, or that the lakes had so overflowed their banks, 
that they had surrounded our castles, and that it was 
impossible for us to get out of them. Yes, surely, 
you must have dreamed so, and the curiosity of seeing 
so great a wonder has brought you so far. Hear, 
Yonondio : our women had taken their clubs ; our 
children and old men had carried their bows and arrows 
into the heart of your camp, if our warriors had not 
disarmed them, and kept them back when your mes- 
senger came to our castle." We cannot give a better 
idea of the effect of their harangues upon their own 
people, and at the same time a finer instance of their 
gratefulness when skilfully touched, than in the address 
to the Wallah-Wallahs by their young chief, the 
Morning Star. In consequence of the death of several 
of their tribe, killed in one of their predatory excur- 
sions against the whites, they had collected in a large 
body for the purpose of assailing them. The stern, 
uncompromising hostility with which they were ani- 
mated may be imagined from the words they chanted 
on approaching to the attack : " Rest, brothers, rest ! 
You will be avenged. The tears of your widows will 
cease to flow when they behold the blood of your 
murderers, and, on seeing their scalps, your young 



132 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

children shall sing and leap with joy. Rest, brothers, 
in peace ! Rest, we shall have blood !" The last 
strains of the death-song had died away. The gleam- 
ing eye, burning with the desire of revenge — the coun- 
tenance, fierce even through an Indian's cloak — the 
levelled gun, and poised arrow, forbade promise of 
peace, and their superior force as little hope of success- 
ful resistance. At this moment of awful excitement, 
a mounted troop burst in between them, and its leader 
addressed his kindred : " Friends and relations ! Three 
snows have only passed over our heads, since we were 
a poor, miserable people. Our enemies were numerous 
and powerful ; we were few and weak. Our hearts 
were as the hearts of little children. We could not 
fight like warriors, and were driven like deer about 
the plains. When the thunders rolled, and the rains 
poured, we had no place save the rocks, whereon we 
could lay our heads. Is such the case now ? No ! 
We have regained possession of the land of our fathers, 
in which they and their fathers' fathers lie buried : our 
hearts are great within us^ and we are now a yiation. 
Who has produced this change ? The white man ! 
And are we to treat him with ingratitude? No ! The 
warrior of the strong arm and the great heart will never 
rob a friend.'''' The result was wonderful. There 
was a complete revulsion of feeling. The angry 
waves were quieted, and the savage, forgetting his 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 133 

enmity, smoked the calumet with those whom the 
eloquence of the Morning Star alone had saved from 
his scalping-knife. 

Fearlessness and success in battle were the highest 
titles to honor, and an accusation of cowardice was a 
deadly insult. A reproach of this kind to a celebrated 
chief received a chivalric reply. Kognethagecton, or, 
as he was more generally called, White-Eyes, at the 
time his nation was solicited to join in the war 
against the Americans, in our struggle for liberty, 
exerted his influence against hostile measures. His 
answer to the Senecas, who were in the British interest, 
and who, irritated by his obstinate adherence to peace, 
attempted to humble him, by reference to an old story 
of the Delawares being a conquered people, is a manly 
and dignified assertion of independence. It reminds 
one of the noble motto of the Frenchman : 'y<? n'estime 
un autre plus grand que mot lorsque fai mon epee.^ " I 
know well," said he, " that you consider us a conquered 
nation — as women — as your inferiors. You have, say 
you, shortened our legs, and put petticoats on us. 
You say you have given us a hoe and a corn-pounder, 
and told us to plant and pound for you — you ?nen — you 
warriors. But look at me — am I not full grown ? 
And have I not a warrior's dress ? Ay ! / am a man 
— and these are the arms of a man — and that country 
is mine !" What a dauntless vindication of manhood. 



134 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 



and what a nice perception of Indian character, is this 
appeal to their love of courage, and their admiration 
for a fine form, vigorous limbs, complete arms, and 
a proud demeanor ! How effective and emphatic the 
conclusion, "all that country is mine!" exclaimed in 
a tone of mingled defiance and pride, and accompanied 
with a wave of the ]iand over the rich country border- 
ing on the Alleghany ! 

This bold speech quelled for a time all opposition, 
but the desire to engage against the Americans, in- 
creased by the false reports of some wandering tories, 
finally became so vehement, that, as a last resort, he 
proposed to the tribe to wait ten days before commenc- 
ing hostilities. Even this was about to be denied him, 
and the term traitor beginning to be whispered around, 
when he rose in council, and began an animated ex- 
postulation against their conduct. He depictured its 
inevitable consequences — the sure advance of the white 
man, and the ruin of his nation ; and then, in a gen- 
erous manner, disclaimed any interest or feelings sep- 
arate from those of his friends ; and added : " But if 
you will go out in this war, you shall not go without 
me. I have taken peace measures, it is true, with the 
view of saving my tribe from destruction. But if you 
think me in the wrong — if you give inore credit to run- 
away vagabonds than to your own friends — to a man — to 
a warrior — to a Delaware — if you insist upon fighting 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 135 

the Americans — go ! And I will go with you. Jnd 
I will not go like the bear-hunter^ who sets his dogs upon 
the animal^ to be beaten about with his paws^ zvhile he 
keeps himself at a safe distance. No ! I will lead vou 
on. I will place myself in the front. I will fall with 
the first of you. You can do as you choose. But as 
for me^ I will not survive my nation. I will not live 
to bewail the miserable destruction of a brave people, 
who deserved, as you do, a better fate !" 

The allusion to their greater confidence in foreigners 
than In their own kindred is a fine specimen of cen- 
sure, wonderfully strengthened by a beautiful climac- 
teric arrangement. Commencing with a friend — and 
who so grateful as an Indian ? — it passes to a man — 
and who so vain of his birthright as an Indian ? — then 
to a warrior ; and who more glorious to the savage 
than the man of battles ? — and lastly to a Delaware — 
a word which rings through the hearts of his hearers, 
starts into life a host of proud associations, and, while 
it deepens their contempt for the stranger and his 
falsehoods, imparts a grandeur to the orator, in whom 
the friend, the man, the warrior, the Delaware are 
personified. 

The spirit of the conclusion added to Its force. It 
was the outbursting of that firm determination never 
to forsake their customs and laws — that brotherhood 
of feeling which has ever inspired the action of the 



136 INDIAN ELOQUENCE, 

aborigines — a spirit which time has strengthened, 
insult hardened to obstinacy, and oppression rendered 
almost hereditary. It bespeaks a bold soul, resolved 
to die with the loss of its country's liberties. 

We pass by the effect of this speech, by merely 
stating that it was successful, to notice a letter much 
of the same character as the close of the last, sent to 
General Clinch, by the chief who is now setting our 
troops at defiance in Florida. " You have arms," says 
he, "and so have we ; you have powder and lead, and 
so have we ; you have men, and so have we ; your 
men will fight, and so will ours, till the last drop of the 
Seminole^s blood has jno'istened the dust of his hunting- 
ground.'''' This needs no comment. Intrepidity is its 
character. 

View these evidences of attachment to the customs 
of their fathers, and of heroic resolution to leave their 
bones in the forests where they were born, and which 
were their inheritance, and then revert to their unavail- 
ing, hopeless resistance against the march of civilization ; 
and though we know it is the rightful, natural course 
of things, yet it is a hard heart which does not feel 
for their fate ; soon their graves will be all they 
shall retain of their once ample hunting-grounds. 
Their strength is wasted, their countless warriors 
dead, their forests laid low, and their burial-places 
upturned by the ploughshare. There was a time 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 137 

when the war-cry of a Powhattan, a Delaware, or 
an Abenaquis, struck terror to the heart of a pale- 
face : but now the Seminole is sino-ing his last battle- 
song. 

Some of the speeches of Skenandoah^ a celebrated 
Oneida chief, contain the truest touches of natural 
eloquence. He lived to a great age ; and, in his last 
oration in council, he opened with the following sub- 
lime and beautiful sentence : " Brothers — / am an aged 
hemlock. The winds of a hundred ivinters have whistled 
through 7ny branches^ and I am dead at the top.''"' Every 
reader, who has seen a tall hemlock, with a dry and 
leafless top surmounting its dark-green foliage, will feel 
the force of the simile. " I am dead at the top." His 
memory, and all the vigorous powers of youth, had 
departed forever. 

Not less felicitous was the close of a speech made 
by Pushmataha.^ a venerable chief of a western tribe, 
at a council held, we believe, in Washington, many 
years since. In alluding to his extreme age, and to 
the probability that he might not even survive the 
journey back to his tribe, he said : " My children will 
walk through the forests, and the Great Spirit will 
whisper in the tree-tops, and the flowers will spring up 
in the trails — but Pushmataha will hear not — he will 
see the flowers no more. He will be gone. His 
people will know that he is dead. The news will 



138 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

come to their ears, as the sound of the fall of a mighty 
oak in the stillness of the woods. ^^ 

The most powerful tribes have been destroyed ; and 
as Sadekanatie expressed it, " Strike at the root, and 
when the trunk shall be cut down, the branches shall 
fall of course." The trunk has fallen, the branches are 
slowly withering, and shortly the question ^''IVho is there 
to mourn for Logan?''' may be made of the whole race, 
and find not a sympathizing reply. 

Their oratory, we think, must survive their fate. It 
contains many attributes of true eloquence. With a 
language too barren, and minds too free for the rules 
of rhetoric, they still attained a power of touching the 
feelings and a sublimity of style which rival the high- 
est productions of their more cultivated enemies. Ex- 
pression apt and pointed — language strong and figurative 
— comparisons rich and bold — descriptions correct and 
picturesque — and gesture energetic and graceful, were 
the most striking peculiarities of their oratory. The 
latter orations, accurate mirrors of their character, 
their bravery, immovable stoicism, and native grandeur, 
heightened as they are in impressiveness by the melan- 
choly accompaniment of approaching extermination, 
will be as endurino- as the swan-like music of Attic 
and Roman eloquence, which was the funeral song of 
the liberties of those republics. 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 139 



1 



At a Conference held at Wyoming, or Westmore- 
land, between Captain John in behalf of the Six Nations, 
and Colonel Butler of the Colony of Connecticut, 
Captain John said : — ) 

" Brothers — We come to make you a visit, and let 
you know we were at the Treaty at Oswego, with 
Colonel Guy Johnson. We are all of one mind, we 
are friends, and bring good news. 

" Brothers — We are also come to let you know, the 
Six Nations have been something afraid, but now are 
glad to see all things look like peace, and they think 
there will be no quarrel with each other, and you must 
not believe bad reports, or remember times that have 
been bad or unfriendly, 
j " Brothers — All our spirits are of one color ; why 
should we not be of one mind ? Continue to be 
brothers, as our fathers and grandfathers were. \ 

" Brothers — We hope and desire you may hold what 
liberties and privileges you now enjoy. 1 

; " Brothers — We are sorry to hear two brothers are 
fighting with each other, and should be glad to hear the 
quarrel was peaceably settled. We choose not to in- 
terest ourselves on either side. The quarrel appears 
to be unnecessary. We do not well understand it. 
We are for peace. ) 

" Brothers — When our young men come to hunt in 
your neighborhood, you must not imagine they come 



I40 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

to do mischief — they come to procure themselves pro- 
visions — also skins to purchase them clothing. 

" Brothers — We desire that Wyoming may be a 
place appointed where the great men may meet, and 
have a fire, which shall ever afterwards be called 
Wyomick, when you shall judge best, to prevent any 
jealousies or uneasy thoughts that may arise, and 
thereby preserve our friendship. 

" Brothers — You see but one of our chiefs. You 
may be suspicious on that account, but we assure you, 
this chief speaks in the name of the Six Nations. We 
are of one mind. 

"Brothers — What we say is not from the lips, but 
from the heart. If any Indians of little note should 
speak otherwise, you must pay no regard to them, but 
observe what has been said and wrote by the chiefs, 
which may be depended on. 

" Brothers — We live at the head of these waters 
(Susquehanna). Pay no regard to anv reports that may 
come up the stream or any other way, but look to the 
head of the waters for truth, and we do now assure 
you, as long as the waters run, so long you may depend 
on our friendship. We are all of one mind, and we 
are all for peace." 

Perhaps we cannot present the reader with a greater 
orator than Garangula ; or, as he was called by the 
I->ench, Grand Gueule, though Lahontan, who 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 141 

knew him, wrote it Grangula. He was by nation an 
Onondaga, and is brought to our notice by the manly 
and magnanimous speech which he made to a French 
general, who marched into the country of the Iroquois 
to subdue them. 

In the year 1684, M. De la Barre^ Governor-General 
of Canada, complained to the English at Albany, that 
the Senecas were infringing upon their rights of trade 
with some of the other more remote nations. Gov- 
ernor Dungan acquainted the Senecas with the charge 
made by the French governor. They admitted the 
fact, but justified their course, alleging that the French 
supplied their enemies with arms and ammunition, with 
whom they were then at war. About the same time, 
the French governor raised an army of seventeen hun- 
dred men, and made other " mighty preparations " 
for the final destruction of the Five Nations. But, 
before he had progressed far in his great undertaking, 
a mortal sickness broke out in his army, which 
finally caused him to give over his expedition. In 
the mean time, the Governor of New York was 
ordered to lay no obstacles in the way of the French 
expedition. Instead of regarding this order, which 
was from his master, the Duke of York, he sent inter- 
preters to the Five Nations to encourage them, with 
offers to assist them. 

De la Barre^ in hopes to effect something by this 



142 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

expensive undertaking, crossed Lake Ontario, and held 
a talk with such of the Five Nations as would meet 
him. To keep up the appearance of power, he made 
a high-toned speech to Grangula, In which he ob- 
served, that the nations had often infringed upon the 
peace ; that he wished now for peace ; but on the con- 
dition that they should make full satisfaction for all the 
injuries they had done the French, and for the future 
never to disturb them. That they, the Senecas, Cay- 
ugas, Onondagas, Oneldas, and Mohawks, had abused 
and robbed all their traders, and unless they gave satis- 
faction he should declare war. That they had con- 
ducted the English into their country to get away their 
trade heretofore, but the past he would overlook, if 
they would offend no more j yet, if ever the like should 
happen again, he had express orders from the king, his 
master, to declare war. 

Grangula^ listened to these words, and many more 
in the like strain, with that contempt which a real 
knowledge of the situation of the French army and 
the rectitude of his own course were calculated to in- 
spire ; and after walking several times round the circle 
formed by his people and the French, addressing him- 
self to the governor, seated in his elbow-chair, he 
began as follows : — 

" Tonnondio [such was the general name for the 
French Governors of Canada], I honor you, and the 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE 143 

warriors that are with me Hkewise honor you. Your 
interpreter has finished your speech. I now begin 
mine. My words make haste to reach your ears. 
Hearken to them. 

" Tonnondio. You must have beheved, when you 
left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all the forests, 
which render our country inaccessible to the French, 
or that the lakes had so far overflown the banks, that 
they had surrounded our castles, and that it was im- 
possible for us to get out of them ; yes, surely you 
must have dreamt so, and the curiosity of seeing so 
great a wonder has brought you so far. Now you are 
undeceived, since that I, and the warriors here present, 
are come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, 
Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are yet alive. I 
thank you, in their name, for bringing back into their 
country the calumet, which your predecessor received 
from their hands. It was happy for you that you left 
under ground that murdering- hatchet that had been so 
often dyed in the blood of the French. 

" Hear^ Tonnondio. I do not sleep ; I have my eyes 
open ; and the sun, which enlightens me, discovered 
to me a great captain at the head of a company of 
soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says, 
that he only came to the lake to smoke on the great 
calumet with the Onondagas. But Grangula savs, 
that he sees the contrary ; that it was to knock them 



144 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of 
the French. I see Tojtnondio raving in a camp of sick 
men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by inflict- 
ing this sickness on them. 

" Hear^ Tonnondio. Our women had taken their 
clubs, our children and old men had carried their bows 
and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our warriors 
had not disarmed them, and kept them back, when your 
messenger Jkouossan came to our castles. It is done, 
and I have said it. 

" Hear^ Tonnondio. We plundered none of the 
French but those that carried guns, powder, and balls 
to the Twightwies and Chictaghicks, because those 
arms might have cost us our lives. Herein we follow 
the example of the Jesuits, who break all the kegs of 
rum brought to our castle, lest the drunken Indians 
should knock them on the head. Our warriors have 
not beaver enough to pay for all those arms that they 
have taken, and our old men are not afraid of the war. 
This belt preserves my words. 

" We carried the English into our lakes, to trade 
there with the Utawawas and Quatoghies, as the Adi- 
rondaks brought the French to our castles, to carry on 
a trade which the English say is theirs. We are born 
FREE. We neither depend on Yonnondio, nor 
CoRLEAR [the English]. We may go where we 
please, and carry with us whom we please, and 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 145 

BUY AND SELL WHAT WE PLEASE/'' If your alHcs be 
your slaves, use them as such ; command them to 
receive no other but your people. This belt preserves 
my words. 

" We knocked the Twightwies and Chictaghicks on 
the head, because they had cut down the trees of peace, 
which were the limits of our country. They have 
hunted beaver on our lands. Thev have acted con- 
trary to the customs of all Indians, for they left none 
of the beavers alive ; they killed both male and female. 
They brought the Satanas into their country, to take 
part with them, after they had concerted ill designs 
against us. We have done less than either the English 
or French that have usurped the lands of so many 
Indian nations, and chased them from their own coun- 
try. This belt preserves my words. 

" Hear^ TonnoncUo. What I say is the voice of all 
the P'ive Nations. Hear what they answer. Open 
your ears to what they speak. The Senecas, Cayugas, 
Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks say, that when 
they buried the hatchet at Cadarackui In the presence 
of your predecessor, in the middle of the fort, they 
planted the tree of peace in the same place ; to be 
there carefully preserved, that, in the place of a retreat 



■^ This proud declaration of Independence accords with and sus:.'.i::3 tlie 
opinions expresicJ Ly us in our Indian narrative. 
10 



146 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

for soldiers, that fort might be a rendezvous for mer- 
chants ; that, in place of arms and ammunition of war, 
beavers and merchandise should only enter there. 

" Hear^ Tonnondio. Take care for the future, that 
so great a number of soldiers as appear there do not 
choke the tree of peace planted in so small a fort. It 
will be a great loss, if, after it had so easily taken root, 
you should stop its growth, and prevent its covering 
your countrv and ours with its branches. I assure you, 
in the name of the Five Nations, that our warriors 
shall dance to the calumet of peace under its leaves ; 
and shall remain quiet on their mats, and shall never 
dicr up the hatchet, till their brother Tonnondio or Corlear 
shall either jointly or separately endeavor to attack the 
country which the Great Spirit has given to our ances- 
tors. This belt preserves my words, and this other, 
the authority which the Five Nations have given me.'* 

Then addressing himself to the interpreter, he said : 
" Take courage. You have spirit ; speak ; explain 
my words •, forget nothing ; tell ail that your brethren 
and friends say to Tojinondio^ your governor, by the 
mouth of Grangula^ who loves you, and desires you to 
accept of this present of beaver, and take part with me 
in my feast, to which I invite you. This present of 
beaver is sent to Tonnondio^ on the part of the Five 
Nations." 

De la Barrc was struck with surprise at the wisdom 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 14- 

of this chief, and equal chagrin at the plain refutation 
of his own. He immediately returned to Montreal, 
and thus finished this inglorious expedition of the 
French against the Five Nations. 

Grangula was at this time a very old man, and from 
this valuable speech we became acquainted with him — • 
a very Nestor of his nation — whose powers of mind 
would not suffer in comparison with those of a Roman 
or a more modern senator. He treated the French 
with great civility, and feasted them with the best his 
country would afford, on their departure. 



Every one recollects the specimen of Indian elo- 
quence in the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to 
the Governor of Virginia. 

In the spring of 1774, a robbery and murde;;^ were 
committed on an inhabitant of the frontiers of Vir- 
ginia, by two Indians of the Shawanee tribe. The 
neighboring whites, according to their custom, under- 
took to punish this outrage in a summary manner. 
Colonel Cresap, a man infamous for the many murders 
he had committed on those much injured people, col- 
lected a party and proceeded down the Kanaway in 
quest of vengeance ; unfortunately, a canoe with 
women and children, with one man only, was seen 
coming from the opposite shore, unarmed, and unsus- 



? 



148 INDIAN ELO!^UENCE. 

pecting an attack from the whites. Cresap and his 
party concealed themselves on the bank of the river, 
and the moment the canoe reached the shore singled 
out their objects, and at one fire killed every person in 
it. This happened to be the family of Logan, who 
had Ions: been distinguished as a friend to the whites. 
This unworthy return provoked his vengeance ; he 
accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued. 
In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was 
fought at the mouth of the Great Kanaway, in which 
the collected forces of the Shawanees, Mingoes, and 
Delawares were defeated by a detachment of the Vir- 
ginian militia. The Indians sued for peace. Logan, 
however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants ; 
but, lest the sincerity of a treaty should be disturbed 
from which so distinguished a chief abstracted himself, 
he sent, by a messenger, the following speech, to be 
delivered to Lord Dunmore : — 

'' I appeal to any white man if ever he entered 
Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not to eat ; if 
ever he came cold and hungry, and he clothed him not. 
During the course of the last long and bloody war, 
Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for 
peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my 
countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, Logan is 
the friend of the white men. I have even thouo-ht to 
have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 149 

* 

Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, murdered 
all the relations of Logan, even my women and 
children. 

" There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of 
any living creature. — This called on me for revenge. — 
I have fought for it. — I have killed many. — I have fully 
glutted my vengeance. — For my country I rejoice at 
the beams of peace — but do not harbor a thought that 
mine is the joy of fear. — Logan never felt fear. — He 
will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is 
there to mourn for Logan ? not one !" 



The speech of Sagnyn Whathah, alias Red Jacket, 
in reply to the address of a Missionary, at a Council 
of the Chiefs of " the Six Nations," in 1805 : 

Friend and Brother I 

It was the will of the Great Spirit that we should 
meet together this day. He orders all things ; and has 
given us a fine day for our council. He has taken his 
garment from before the sun, and caused it to shine 
with brightness upon us. Our eyes are opened that we 
see clearly ; our ears are unstopped, that we have been 
able to hear distinctly the words you have spoken. 
For all these favors we thank the Great Spirit, and him 
only. 

Brother ! Listen to what we say. There was a 



150 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

time when our forefathers owned this great island. 
Their seats extended from the rising to the setting 
sun : the Great Spirit had made it for the use of the 
Indians. He had created the buffalo, the deer, and 
other animals for food. He had made the bear and the 
beaver ; their skins served us for clothing. He had 
scattered them over the countrv, and taught us how to 
take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn 
for bread. All this he had done for his red children, 
because he Ipved them. If we had disputes about our 
hunting-ground, they were generally settled without the 
shedding of much blood. But an evil day came upon 
us ; your forefathers crossed the great waters, and 
landed on this island : their numbers were small : thev 
found us friends, and not enemies. They told us they 
had fled from their own country, through fear of wicked 
men, and had come here to enjoy their religion. They 
asked for a small seat ; we took pity on them, and 
granted their request : and they sat down amongst us. 
We gave them corn and meat, and, in return, they gave 
us poison. The white people having now found our 
country, tidings were sent back, and more came 
amongst us ; yet we did not fear them. We took 
them to be friends : they called us brothers , we 
believed them, and gave them a larger seat. At length 
their number so increased, that they wanted more land : 
they wanted our country. Our eyes were opened, and 



INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 151 

we became uneasy. Wars took place ; Indians were 
hired to fight against Indians ; and many of our people 
were destroyed. They also distributed liquor amongst 
us, which has slain thousands. 

Brother ! Once our seats were large, and yours were 
small. You have now become a great people, and we 
have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You 
have got our country, but, not satisfied, vou want to 
force your religion upon us. 

Brother! Continue to listen. You say you are sent 
to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agree- 
ably to His mind, and that if we do not take hold of 
the religion which you teach, we shall be unhappy here- 
after. How do we know this to be true ? We under- 
stand that your religion is written in a book. If it was 
intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great 
Spirit given it to us ; and not only to us, but why did 
he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that 
book, with the means of rightly understanding it ? We 
only know what you tell us about it, and having been 
so often deceived by the white people, how shall we 
believe what they say ? 

Brother ! You say there is but one way to worship 
and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, 
why do you white people differ so much about it ? 
Why not all agree, as you can all read the book? 

Brother! We do not understand these thiings : we 



152 INDIAN ELOQUENCE. 

are told that your religion was given to your forefathers, 
and has been handed down from father to son. We 
also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, 
and has been handed down to us : it teaches us to be 
thankful for all favors received^ to love each other ^ and to 
he ufiited , lue never quarrel about religion. 

Brother ! The Great Spirit made us all ; but he has 
made a great difference between his white and his red 
children : — he has given us different complexions and 
different customs. To you he has given the arts ; to 
these he has not opened our eyes. Since he has made 
so great a difference between us in other things, why 
may he not have given us a different religion ? The 
Great Spirit does right : he knows what is best for his 
children. 

Brother ! We do not want to destroy your religion, 
or to take It from you. We only want to enjoy our 
own. 

Brother ! We are told that you have been preaching 
to the white people in this place. These people are 
our neighbors. We will wait a little, and see what 
effect your preaching has had upon them. If we find 
it makes them honest, and less disposed to cheat 
Indians, we will then consider again of what you have 
said. 

Brother I You have now heard our answer, and this 
is all we have to say at present. As we are about to 



INDIAN ELOi^U ENCE. 153 

part, we will come and take you by the hand : and we 
hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey, 
and return you safe to your friends. 



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